BS2505  .R35  1907 
Ramsay,  William  Mitchell,  Sir,  1851- 
1939.  Cities  of  St.  Paul :  their  influence 
on  his  life  and  thought : 


THE  DALE  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

IN  MANSFIELD  COLLEGE,  OXFORD 

1907 


THE    CITIES    OF    ST.    PAUL 

THEIR  INFLUENCE  ON  HIS  LIFE  AND  THOUGHT 


THE    DALE    MEMORIAL    LECTURES 

IN  MANSFIELD  COLLEGE,  OXFORD 

1907 


5S  OF  WHU^ 

12 
THE  Va,  .^ 


CITIES    OF    ST.    PAUL 

THEIR    INFLUENCE    ON    HIS 
LIFE    AND    THOUGHT 

THE  CITIES  OF  EASTERN  ASIA  MINOR 


BY   SIR 


W.    M.    RAMSAY,    Kr.,    Hon.    D.C.L.,   etc 

FROFESSOR   OP   HUMANITV   IN    THE    UNIVERSITY   OF  ABERDEBM 


HODDER    &    STOUGHTON 

NEW  YORK 

GEORGE   H.    DORAN    COMPANY 


PREFACE 

The  subject  of  these  lectures  has  proved  much  larger 
than  was  anticipated  in  my  original  plan,  and  I  have 
been  obliged  to  omit  the  Pauline  Cities  of  the  Aegean 
coasts,  important  as  they  were  in  St.  Paul's  career,  and 
to  refrain  from  discussing  his  words  and  metaphors,  as 
I  had  hoped  to  do  in  Part  VII. 

Parts  III. — YI.  treat  the  same  subject  as  was 
handled  in  Chapters  XII. — XV.  of  the  Introduction 
to  the  Historical  Commentary  on  the  Epistle  to  the 
Galatians ;  but,  whereas  there  the  aim  was  to  collect 
all  the  information  that  could  be  gathered  about  the 
Galatian  cities,  here  the  object  is  to  understand  the 
character  of  each  as  an  experiment  in  the  amalgamation 
of  Asiatic  and  European  in  a  social  organism,  and  to 
appreciate  the  unity  which  runs  through  its  history 
from  century  to  century. 

I  add  a  confirmation  of  the  view  stated  in  p.  204  f. 
as  to  the  veil  being  the  authority  of  the  woman  in 


vi  Preface 

Oriental  society.  In  the  Hebrew  marriage  ceremony, 
as  it  is  celebrated  in  modern  Palestine,  I  am  informed 
that  the  husband  snatches  off  the  bride's  veil  and 
throws  it  on  his  own  shoulder,  as  a  sign  that  he  has 
assumed  authority  over  her. 

Considerable  parts  of  this  book  have  appeared  as 
articles,  especially  in  the  Contemporary  Review  and 
the  Expositor.  With  the  large  tax  levied  on  my 
time  and  strength  by  college  duties  in  winter  and  ex- 
ploration in  summer,  the  task  of  composing  a  book 
would  be  beyond  my  powers,  were  I  not  able  in 
this  way  to  take  it  in  parts,  working  up  each  as 
opportunity  offers,  but  having  always  the  general  plan 
in  mind.  Several  of  the  articles  were  written  in  trains 
or  remote  places,  but  they  were  composed  long  before 
they  were  written.  Most  of  them  have  been  greatly 
modified  and,  I  hope,  improved  in  their  present  form. 

W.  M.  RAMSAY. 


CONTENTS 


PART  I 

Paulinism  in  the  Gr>eco-Roman  World     ,        , 

§  I.     Introduction  ..... 

§  II.     The  Pauline  Philosophy  of  History 

§  III.     The  Pauline  Contrasted  with  the    Modern 
Method 

§  IV.  St.  Paul  and  Hellenism 

§  V.  Hellenism  and  Hebraism       .         ,         , 

§  VI.  The  Empire  as  the  World's  Hope 

§  VII.  Paulinism  in  the  Roman  Empire    .        • 

§  VIII.  Conclusion 


PAOB 

3 

3 
lo 

15 

30 
43 

48 
70 
78 


PART  II 


Tarsus 


§  I.  Introduction       .         .         . 

§11.  The  Situation  of  Tarsus 

§  III.  Tarsus  and  the  Plain  of  Cilicia 

§  IV.  Tarsus,  the  River  and  the  Sea 

§  V.  Tarsus  and  the  Cilician  Gates 


85 

85 

93 

98 

105 

iia 


vlii 


Contents 


§VI. 

§VII. 

§  VIII. 

§IX. 

§x. 

§XI. 

§XIL 

§  XIII. 

§XIV. 

§xv. 
§xvi. 

§  XVII. 

§  XVIII. 

§XIX. 

§XX. 

§XXI. 

§  XXII. 
§  XXIII. 


The  lonians  in  Early  Tarsus        ,        , 

Tarsus  as  an  Oriental  Town         .         , 

Legends  of  Early  Tarsus     . 

The  Religion  of  Tarsus       .         .         , 

The  Revival  of  Greek  Influence  . 

Tarsus  as  the  Greek  Colony  Antiocheia 

The  Greeks  in  Tarsus-Antiocheia 

The  Jews  in  Tarsus     .... 

The  Jews  settled  in  Tarsus  in  1 7 1  B.C. 

Tarsus  the  Hellenistic  City 

Tarsus  as  Capital  of  the  Roman  Province 
Cilicia 

The  Oriental  Spirit  in  Tarsus  .  • 

Romans  otherwise  Tarsians  .  • 

The  Tarsian  Democracy     .  ,  . 

Athenodorus  of  Tarsus 

The  Reform  of  the  Tarsian  Constitution  by 
Athenodorus 

The  University  of  Tarsus    .         . 

Tarsus  under  the  Empire    .         .        . 


PAGB 
116 

121 

165 

i6g 
180 
186 

191 
198 
205 
214 
216 

224 
228 
235 


PART  III 


Antioch 

§  I.  The  City  and  its  Foundation  . 

§  II.  The  Jews  in  Pisidian  Antioch 

§  III,  The  Greek  Colonists  in  Early  Antioch 

§  IV.  The  Phrygians  of  Antioch     . 


247 

247 

255 
259 
260 


Contents 


IX 


§  V.  Antioch  a  City  of  Galatia       .         .        ..         .  262 

§  VI.  Character  of  the  Original  Hellenic  City           .  264 

§  VII.  The  Roman  Colony  of  Pisidian  Antioch         .  268 

§  VIII.  Hellenism  in  Pisidian  Antioch        .         .         .  277 

§  IX.  The  Religion  of  Antioch        ....  285 

§  X.  First  Appearance  of  Paul  and  Barnabas  in  the 

Antiochian  Synagogue       ....  296 

§  XI.  Paul's  First  Address  to  a  Galatian  Audience  299 

§  XII.  The  Approach  to  the  Gentiles         .         .         .  303 

§  XIII.  The  Door  of  the  Gentiles      ....  308 


PART  IV 


ICONIUM 

§  I.  Natural  and  National  Character      .         . 

§  II.  The  Religion  of  Iconium        .         .         . 

§  III.  The  Territory  of  Iconium      .         .         . 

g  IV.  Iconium  a  City  of  Galatia 

§  V.  The  Constitution  of  the  Hellenic  City  Iconium 

§  VII.  Iconium  as  a  Roman  City 

§  VIII.  The  Roman  Colony  of  Iconium     .         . 

§  IX.  St.  Paul  at  Iconium       .... 

§  X.  The  Christian  Cults  of  Iconium     .         • 


317 
317 
330 
334 
343 
353 
360 
362 
370 
374 


PART  V 


Derbe •        i        •        •      385 


X  Contents 


PART  VI 

MOB 

Lystra .1      407 

§  1.     Situation  and  Character    .        •        •        .        .      407 
§  II.     Character  of  the  Five  Cities        •        •        •        ,418 


PART  VII 
St.  Paul  in  the  Roman  World        .        •        •        .     423 

Notes      •        • 437 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

PLATES 


FACIMO 
PAOB 


I.  Tarsus,  the  Hill  Country  behind,  and  the  snow- 
covered  Taurus  in  the  background    ...       94 
II.  Two  views  of  a  Triuu)phal  Arch  on  the  Roman 
Road,  twelve  miles  north  of  Tarsus :  from  the 
south.      (A   view   from  the  north  is  given  in 
Pauline  and  Other  Studies,  Plate  XIII.)    .         .       96 

III.  Jonas  Pillar  and  the  Cilician  Sea,  near  Issus.     The 

slope  of  Djebel  Nur  rises  on  the  right        .         .       98 

IV.  Falls  of  the  Cydnus  (the  new  River  of  Justinian) 

on  the  north  side  of  Tarsus      .         .         .         .108 

V.  The  Cilician  Gates 108 

VI.  The  desolate  site  of  Pisidian  Antioch     .         .         .     248 
VII.  Remains  of  a  Hellenistic  building  at  Antioch  .     250 

VIII.  The  Aqueduct  of  Pisidian  Antioch         .         .         .252 
IX.  Rock-cutting,  generally  supposed  to  be  the  Sanctuary 
of  the  God  of  Pisidian  Antioch,  perhaps  only 

the  site  of  an  Odeon 254 

X.  The  Plateau  of  Pisidian  Antioch  and  the  Glen  of 

the  River  Anthios,  looking  from  the  north-east .     272 
xi 


xii  Illustrations 


FACINQ 
PAGE 


XI.  Looking  across  Konia  to  the  Twin  Peaks  of  St. 

Philip  and  St.  Thekla 272 

XII.  The  Sacred  Village  and  Mountain  of  the  Zizimmene 

Mother  of  Iconium 330 

XIII.  Seat   of    the    Mevlevi    Dervishes :    the   Religious 

Centre  of  Iconiuii  .         .  .  Frontispiece 

XIV.  The  Church  of  St.  Amphilochius  at  Iconium  .         .  380 
XV.  Hadji   Baba,   the    Pilgrim   Father,   the    Mountain 

Guardian  of  Derbe  ....*.  388 

XVI.  The  Site  of  Derbe 394 

XVII.  Khatyn  Serai  and  Lystra  and  the  Bridge  on  the 

Southern  Road         ......  408 

XVIII.  Medijeval  Bridge  on  the  north  side  of  Khatyn  Serai  410 

CUTS  IN  THE  TEXT 

PAOB 

Fig.  I .  Greek    Warrior    on    Coin     of    Tarsus :     Aramaic 

Letters    ....                  ...  123 

Fig.  2.  Greek  Nymph  on  Coin  of  Tarsus:  Aramaic  Letters  127 

Fig.  3.  The  Baal  of  Tarsus  and  the  Persian  Satrap  of  Cilicia  128 
Fig.  4.  The  Baal  of  Tarsus  and  the  Syrian  Gates         .         ,129 

Fig.  5.  Athena  on  Coin  of  Tarsus      .         .         .         .        •  130 

Fig.  6.  Lion  and  Star  on  Coin  of  Tarsus    .         .         ,         %  \7^\ 
Fig.  7.  The  Goddess,  her  Lions,  and  the  God,  a  Lycaonian 

Relief 134 

Fig.  8.  Perseus  with  the  Gorgon's  Head  on  Coin  of  Tarsus  135 

Fig.  9.  The  Baal  of  Tarsus  and  the  City  Emblem        ,         .  140 


Illustrations  xiii 


FAOB 


Fig.  I  o.  The  Baal  of  Tarsus  with  Eagle      .         .         .         .141 
Fig.  II.  The  Anatolian  God  and  the  Hellenic  City-Goddess 

of  Tarsus I44 

Fig.  12.  The  AnatoHan  God  at  Boghaz-Keui      .         .         .     145 
Fig.  13.  The  Anatolian  God  of  Tarsus  as  he  was  borne  to 

the  Pyre 148 

Fig.  14.  Perseus,   with  the  City-Goddess  and  the  People, 

adoring  Apollo  of  Tarsus .         .         .         t         .150 
Fig.  15.  Perseus  supporting  Apollo  of  Tarsus      .         .         .152 
Fig.  16.  Perseus  and  the  Fisherman  of  Tarsus     .         .         •     153 
Fig.  17.  The  Persian  God  Ahura-mazda  on  Coin  of  Tarsus       154 
Fig.  18.  Mithras  Sacrificing  a  Bull  on  Coin  of  Tarsus  .     155 

Fig.  19.  The    Hellenic    City-Goddess    and    the    God    of 

Antioch-Tarsus         .         .         .         .         .         .160 

Fig.  20.  Tarsus  with  the  River  Cydnus  at  her  Feet  .  .188 
Fig.  21.  The  Hellenic  City-Goddess  and  the  Anatolian  God 

of  the  Tarsians 189 

Fig.  22.  The  two  Imperial  Temples  at  Tarsus  .  .  .  237 
Fig.  23.  The  Three  Provinces  Crowning  the  City-Goddess 

of  Tarsus 238 

Fig.  24.  The  Crown  of  the  High-priest  of  the  Emperors  .  239 
Fig.  25.  Tarsus  between  Athena  and  Nemesis  .  .  .241 
Fig.  26.  Ship  bringing  Egyptian  Corn  to  Tarsus  .  .  .  242 
Fig.  27.  The  River  Anthios  on  Coin  of  Pisidian  Antioch  .  316 
Fig.  28.  The  Roman  Standards  at  Antioch  .         .         .274 

Fig.  29.  Gordian     HI.     sacrificing     beside     the     Roman 

Standards  at  Antioch 275 

Fig.  30.  Imperial  Victories  at  Antioch        •         •        •         .276 


xiv  Illustrations 


Fig.  31.  Peace  hurrying  to  Antioch     .        •        •        . 

Fig.  32.  The  Genius  of  Antioch         .... 

Fig-  33-  The  God  of  Antioch  supporting  Victory 

Fig.  34.  The  Goddess-Mother  of  Antioch  with  her  Lions 

Fig.  35.  The  Genius  of  Antioch  with  Olive-branch 

Fig.  36.  The  Genius  of  Antioch  with  Horn  of  Plenty  . 

Fig.  37.  Gordian  III.  supporting  the  Genius  of  the  City  and 

greeting  Antioch  ..... 
Fig.  38.  Antioch  as  the  Lady  of  the  Limnai  •  . 
Fig.  39.  The  Statue  of  Perseus  at  Iconium  .        • 

Fig.  40.  Perseus  on  a  Coin  of  Iconium       .         ,         . 
Fig.  41.  Athena  Polias  at  Iconium     .... 
Fig.  42.  The  Hellenic  Zeus  of  the  Iconians 
Fig.  43.  The  Hero,  a  Relief  at  Iconium     . 
Fig.  44.  Heracles  at  Iconium    ..... 
Fig.  45.  The  Roman  She-Wolf  at  Iconium 
Fig.  46.  The  Good  Fortune  of  Iconium 
Fig.  47.  The  Good  Fortune  of  Iconium  with  River  at  her 

Feet 

Fig.  48.  The  Empress   Poppaea    as  the  City-Goddess  of 

Iconium . 

Fig.  49.  The  Tomb  of  Paul  the  Martyr  at  Derbe 

Fig.  50.  Heracles  at  Derbe 

Fig.  51.  Good  Fortune  at  Derbe        .... 
Fig.  52.  Victory  Writing  on  a  Shield  :  a  Statue  at  Derbe 
Fig.  53.  The  Founder  of  Lystra  Ploughing  the  Limits  of 

the  City 

Fig.  54.  The  Good  P'ortune  of  Lystra         .         .        • 
Fig.  55.  The  Good  Fortune  of  Barata         ,        .        • 


281 

282 
286 
288 
289 
290 

291 
292 
328 
329 
331 
332 
333 
354 
365 
367 

368 

369 
390 
400 
401 

402 

413 
414 

41S 


Illustrations  xv 


MAPS 


PAOB 


I.    CiLICIA    AND   THE    ROAD   ACROSS   TaURUS     ...  84 

II.  From   Tarsus   and   the   Coast   to  the  Cilician 

Gates io6 

III.  The  Region  of  Pisidian  Antioch  ....  246 

IV.  The  Country  of  Iconium,  Derbe  and  Lystra      .  384 


ERRATA. 

Pp.  360-381,  Part  IV.,  §  VII.-X.  should  be  numbered  VI.-IX. 
The  reference  on  p.  318, 1.  2,  to  §  X.,  would  then  become  §  IX. 


PART  I. 
PAULINISM   IN   THE  GRiECO-ROMAN  WORLEk 


PAULINISM   IN   THE   GR^CO-ROMAN   WORLD. 

§  I.    Introduction. 

My  first  words  must  be  an  apology  for  the  character  of  my 
opening  paragraph :  but  the  circumstances  make  an  auto- 
biographical introduction  the  most  suitable  in  this  place  and 
in  this  University,  as  furnishing  an  explanation  and  a  justi- 
fication of  the  choice  of  subject  in  these  lectures. 

It  has  always  appeared  to  me  the  most  fortunate  factor  in 
the  whole  course  of  my  education  that  in  the  last  part  of  my 
undergraduate  life  immediately  after  spending  a  year  in  read- 
ing with  unusual  care  the  most  developed  stage  of  Aristotle's 
philosophy,  I  was  compelled  by  the  Law  of  the  University 
— much  against  my  own  will — to  study  the  letter  of  Paul 
to  the  Galatians,  and  to  learn  in  practical  experience  that  the 
Law  is  a  schoolmaster  to  prepare  one  for  freedom,  "  rough, 
but  a  good  nurse  of  youths,"  to  use  the  words  of  Homer, 
whereas  on  the  contrary  a  premature  entrance  into  the  life 
of  apparent  freedom  can  only  be  the  beginning  of  a  life-long 
slavery.  Freedom,  as  Paul  taught,  must  be  the  culmination 
of  a  long  preparation  under  servitude  to  the  Law  ;  otherwise 
it  can  only  be  injurious,  and  cannot  even  be  freedom,  but 
only  a  worse  form  of  servitude.  Degeneration  is  the  inevit- 
able result  of  servitude,  whether  it  be  servitude  to  an  external 
master  or  to  one's  own  insufificiently  educated  nature.  My 
subject  in  the  first  part  of  these  lectures  is  mainly  to  pass 

(3) 


4        I.   Paulinism  in  the  Gr^eco-Roman   World 

under  review  the  form  which  Paul  gave  to  the  ancient 
theory  of  the  universal  degeneration  in  history,  and  the  cure 
which  alone  he  judged  sufficient  to  turn  degeneration  into 
progressive  development. 

Reading  the  most  remarkable  and  the  most  intensely  in- 
dividual of  the  Pauline  Epistles  as  the  completion  of  a  study 
of  Greek  philosophy,  I  telt  that  in  Paul,  for  the  first  time 
since  Aristotle,  Greek  philosophy  made  a  real  step  forward. 
Such  was  the  impression  made  during  my  reading  for  the 
schools.  Now  after  thirty-one  years  I  have  to  state  to  you 
the  issue  of  that  idea,  which  seized  hold  of  my  mind  in 
undergraduate  days  and  has  gripped  me  ever  since.  I  shall 
not  attempt  to  treat  it  with  philosophic  delicacy  and 
subtlety,  for  that  is  beyond  my  power.  I  state  only  the 
broad  rough  views  of  one  who  looks  at  what  men  did  and 
how  States  rose  and  fell. 

While  it  is  impossible  to  discu'^s  Paul's  views  on  philo- 
sophy or  on  history  without  touching  on  his  religious  opinions, 
our  subject  is  primarily  historical,  and  our  aim  is  for  the 
moment  to  set  aside,  as  far  as  may  be,  the  religious  aspect  of 
Paul's  ideas,  and  to  regard  him  as  a  force  and  a  leader  in 
history. 

The  main  point  and  issue  is  this :  Ancient  civilisation 
perished  almost  utterly ;  comparatively  few  specimens  oi  its 
literature  survived  ;  far  the  larger  part  of  its  institutions  and 
methods  in  the  organisation  of  society  disappeared  entirely 
from  practical  life,  and  can  barely  be  guessed  at  now,  as 
some  saner  ideas  of  the  ancient  world  are  being  recovered. 
When  one  looks  at  the  terrible  suffering  that  accompanied 
the  inroads  of  the  worst  tribes  of  destroying  barbarians, 
from  the  Huns  to  the  Mongols,  when  one  remembers  the 
wanton  and  reckless  destruction  of  almost  everything  that 


I.   Introduction 


the  ancient  civilisation  had  constructed,  the  utter  loss  of  so 
much  that  was  useful  and  beautiful,  so  much  in  social  life  that 
had  to  be  slowly  recovered,  and  has  as  yet  been  by  no  means 
all  recovered,  in  order  to  make  life  good  and  healthy  and 
sound,  it  seems  as  if  history  were  the  game  of  a  wanton  child 
playing  with  its  toys  and  wasting  or  throwing  them  away  as 
it  tired  of  them.  What  can  explain,  and  what  can  repair  the 
week-long  sack  of  the  greatest  city  of  the  Middle  Ages  by  the 
Mongols,  the  annihilation  by  ignorant  savages  of  the  biggest 
collection  of  the  remains  of  the  ancient  world,  and  all  that 
this  total  wreck  means  to  the  civilised  world  ?  Is  there 
reason  in  this,  or  mere  blind  chance  and  foolish  caprice? 

To  Paul  it  seemed  that  there  was  reason  in  it.  He,  like 
the  great  Hebrew  prophets,  foresaw  it,  denounced  its  causes, 
recognised  its  purpose,  and  announced  the  remedy.  The 
sack  of  Bagdad  was  but  part  of  the  last  act  in  a  long  course 
of  degeneration.  The  degeneration  had  been  in  process 
before  the  time  of  Paul.  It  was  not  the  attacks  of  savages 
from  without  that  destro)'cd  the  ancient  civilisation  and 
almost  all  the  man}'  grtat  benefits  it  had  wrought  out  for 
mankind ;  it  was  the  inherent  and  innate  faults  of  that 
civilisation.  A  new  foundation  was  needed  on  which  to 
build  up  civilised  lile.  Paul  showi  d  what  the  foundation 
must  be.  He  taught  how  the  trausfoimation  of  the  old 
system  and  the  improvement  of  the  foundation  could  be 
gradually  effected.  P"or  some  centuries  it  seemed  possible 
that  the  transformation  and  regenerati(.n  might  be  effected 
peacefully.  But,  as  he  declared,  and  as  the  result  showed, 
there  was  no  alternative  excefit  either  regeneration  or  death. 
He  appreciated  well,  and  declared  emphatically  that  the  old 
system  had  an  element  of  good  (§  2)  ;  but  without  funda- 
mental reform  it  could  not  be  preserved.     It  was  rotten  to 


6        I.   Paulinism  in  the  GrctCO-RoTuan   World 

the  heart  So  said  Paul ;  and  so  must  eveiy  one  feel  who 
studies  the  innermost  character  of  ancient  society ;  so  most 
emphatically  said  the  ancients  themselves.  The  Hellenistic 
kingdoms  of  the  East  struck  out  many  admirable  devices 
in  society  and  in  administration,  or  else  borrowed  them  from 
the  older  Oriental  States  and  improved  them  as  they  took 
them ;  the  Roman  Empire  appropriated  many  of  these 
devices  and  wrought  them  into  its  own  vast  system  of 
government ;  but  neither  in  Hellenistic  nor  in  Roman  times 
did  these  admirable  devices  rest  on  a  broad  enough  and  safe 
enough  basis. 

In  the  philosophy  of  Paul,  the  Eastern  mind  and  the 
Hellenic  have  been  intermingled  in  the  closest  union,  like 
two  elements  which  have  undergone  a  chemical  mixture. 
In  every  sentence,  in  every  thought,  you  can  feel  the  Oriental 
element,  if  you  are  sensitive  to  it,  and  you  are  also  aware  of 
the  Wes'ern,  if  you  are  perceptive  of  Hellenism  ;  but  you 
become  aware  only  of  that  which  you  are  qualified  by  nature, 
by  training,  and  above  all  by  inclination,  to  perceive.  Hence 
the  extraordinarily  opposite  opinions  held  by  modern 
scholars  about  the  writings  of  Paul.  The  great  majority  of 
scholars  are  sentient  only  of  the  Judaic  element.  They  feel 
the  Jew  in  him.  They  feel  that  every  paragraph  and  every 
idea  in  his  writings  is  such  as  only  a  Jew  could  have  con- 
ceived and  composed.  And  so  far  they  are  perfectly  right. 
From  first  to  last  throughout  the  whole  fabric  of  his  being 
Paul  was  Hebrew.  But  they  err  in  thinking  that  this  is  the 
whole  matter,  and  that  they  have  understood  Paul  com- 
pletely when  they  have  been  aware  of  the  Hebrew. 

They  have  not  approached  the  problem  with  a  wide 
enough  nature.  They  have  come  to  Paul  with  their  mind 
dipped  in  Hebraism  and  Orientalism,  thinking  only  of  this, 


I.   Introduction 


sensitive  only  to  this  side  of  his  character.  They  seem 
never  to  have  sufficiently  familiarised  themselves  with  the 
Graeco- Roman  world  as  it  was  in  the  first  century  of  our  era. 
They  have  been  educated  in  the  old  Hellenism  of  free 
Greece,  and  in  the  civilisation  of  Rome.  But  I  rarely  find 
in  them  any  sympathy  with,  or  understanding  of,  hardly 
any  thought  about,  the  Hellenism  that  overran  the  world  of 
Western  Asia,  adapted  itself  to  Asia,  widened  itself  to  the 
wider  sphere,  and  changed  its  character  profoundly  in  the 
adaptation.  Nor  do  they  convey  the  impression  that  they 
have  thought  much  about  the  subtle  tinge  or  flavour  that 
Rome  had  imparted  to  the  Graeco-Oriental  civilisation. 
Rome  had  not  Romanised  or  sought  to  Romanise  the 
Eastern  Provinces.  Rome  was  content  to  organise  and  to 
govern  them,  to  preserve  peace  in  an  orderly  population  and 
make  it  contribute  to  the  strength  of  the  Empire  as  a  whole. 
But  in  doing  this  it  had  perceptibly  influenced  the  tone  of 
the  Eastern  Provinces.  Romans  were  the  aristocracy  of  the 
Eastern  world. 

For  example,  glance  at  two  pictures,  which  Luke  passes 
before  us  in  the  Acts,  of  events  which  occurred  within  his 
own  knowledge  and  in  part  before  his  own  eyes.  Here  you 
have  photographs,  as  it  were,  taken  from  real  life  as  it  was 
lived  in  the  Roman  Provinces  of  the  first  century  after  Christ. 
Nothing  more  vivid  and  more  informing  has  been  preserved 
to  us  in  the  records  of  the  period.  Not  to  recognise  this  life- 
like character  is  to  write  oneself  down  as  unfit  to  appreciate 
and  to  understand  the  living  world  of  that  age.  When  two 
wanderers,  unknown  and  assumed  to  be  oi  the  poorest  class, 
were  imprisoned  in  a  Roman  colonial  city,  the  chains  fell  off 
them  at  the  words  "  we  are  Romans  ".  A  Roman  Tribune 
heard  that  an  Egyptian  brigand  was  being  torn  in  pieces  by 


8        I.   Paulinism  in  the  Grcsco-Roman   World 

an  infuriated  mob  in  Jerusalem ;  he  rescued  the  vagabond 
in  order  to  exercise  Roman  justice  on  him,  and  as  a  first 
step  was  proceeding  to  have  him  flogged,  when  the  prisoner 
mentioned  that  he  was  a  Roman  by  birth ;  the  officer  at 
once  became  his  apologetic  protector  and  friend.  No  further 
questions  were  put  in  either  case  ;  no  proofs  were  required ; 
the  mere  claim  was  enough,  and  constraint  and  ill-treatment 
were  ended.  Incidentally  the  question  suggests  itself:  Was 
there  not  something  in  the  very  manner  and  tone  of  the 
claim  which  carried  conviction  in  spite  of  unfavourable 
external  appearances  ?  Was  there  not  something  Roman 
about  the  Roman  ?  At  any  rate,  this  privilege  and  authority 
made  the  rank  not  merely  honourable,  but  also  practically 
advantageous,  and  hence  rose  the  keen  desire  to  obtain  it 
which  is  shown  in  the  Acts  xxii.  28.  Now  in  any  society 
the  aristocratic  class  exercises  a  certain  vague,  yet  very  real, 
influence  on  the  tone  of  every  other  diss;  and  especially 
must  this  be  the  case  in  a  society  like  that  of  the  Roman 
provinces,  where  every  person  of  good  position  might  look 
forward  to  the  attainment  of  the  coveted  rank  as  a  possibility 
in  his  career.  The  Romans  at  this  period  gave  the  tone  of 
society ;  it  was  different  two  centuries  later,  when  the  national 
and  the  Oriental  spirit  had  revived  and  grown  powerful. 

All  these  varied  influences  were  at  work  in  the  Graeco- 
Asiatic  cities  of  the  Empire ;  and  they  produced  a  type  of 
man  and  of  thought  which  hardly  seems  to  be  dreamed  of 
by  those  interpreters  of  Paul,  who  appreciate  the  Hebrew 
element  in  him  and  discern  nothing  else.  But.  if  we  first 
familiarise  ourselves  with  the  society  in  which  Paul  grew  up, 
in  which  he  spent  most  of  his  life,  and  for  which  he  in  his 
mature  years  felt  that  he  was  specially  suited,  and  if  we 
approach  him  from  that  side,  we  shall  feel  everywhere  in  his 


I.   Introdtiction 


work  the  spirit  of  the  Tarsian  Hellene,  So  Canon  Hicks, 
who  knows  the  Hellenic  cities  of  Asia  as  few  scholars  do, 
feels  the  Hellenic  training  and  experience  apparent  through- 
out the  Pauline  letters.  So  the  late  Ernst  Curtius,  the 
historian  of  Greece,  felt  in  the  letters  the  Hellenic  tone.^ 

The  testimony  which  struck  me  most  of  all  was  the  opinion 
expressed  by  two  of  the  most  learned  Jews  of  modern  time, 
with  whom  I  happened  to  be  talking  more  than  ten  years 
rigo  in  the  house  of  one  of  them.  The  conversation  chanced 
to  turn  on  Paul  and  on  the  letters  attributed  to  him.  They 
were  both  perfectly  certain  that  none  of  the  Pauline  letters 
could  be  genuine,  because  there  is  much  in  them  which  no 
Jew  could  write.  These  were  scholars  whose  opinion  on 
any  matter  connected  with  Judaism  in  the  early  Christian 
centuries  stands  very  high  in  the  estimation  of  the  whole 
world.  They  know  old  Jewish  feeling  from  the  inside  with 
an  intimacy  which  no  Western  scholar  can  ever  attain  to. 
They  appreciated  the  non-Jewish  element  intermingled  in 
the  writings  of  Paul.  They  r:ghtly  recognised  that  no  mere 
Jew  could  write  like  that ;  but  instead  of  inferring  that  Paul 
was  more  than  a  mere  Jew  in  education  and  mind,  they 
argued  that  he,  being  (as  is  commonly  assumed  and  main- 
tained by  modern  scholars)  a  pure  and  narrow  Jew,  could 
not  have  written  those  letters. 

The  plan  of  the  first  part  of  these  lectures  is,  first  to 
state  the  fundamental  principles  of  Paul's  historical  survey; 
next  to  contrast  his  view  with  the  modern  method  ;  thirdly, 
to  point  out  that  his  view  in  some  degree  may  be  regarded 
as  a  development  of  Hellenic  thought ;  fourthly,  to  show  the 
relation  in  which  his  thought  and  the  cure  which  he  pro- 
posed for  the  degeneration  of  society  stood  to  the  Roman 
world  of  his  own  and  of  succeeding  time. 


lo    I.      Paulinism  in  the  Grceco-Roman  World 


§  II.    The  Pauline  Philosophy  of  History. 

I  should,  in  the  first  place,  ask  you  to  glance  at  the 
Philosophy  of  History,  as  Paul  declares  it.  To  him  the 
Philosophy  of  History  was  the  History  of  religion,  for  in  his 
view  there  is  nothing  real  except  God,  things  are  permanent 
and  firm  only  as  they  partake  of  the  Divine.  All  else  is 
evanescent,  mere  illusion  and  error  and  uncertainty. 

It  is  in  his  letter  to  the  Romans  that  Paul  gives  clearest 
expression  to  the  view  which  he  took  of  human  history ; 
but  the  same  view  underlies  all  his  thought,  and  springs 
inevitably  from  his  attitude  towards  God  and  human  nature, 
expressing  itself  in  his  perception,  gained  through  Greek 
philosophy,  of  the  never-ceasing  flux  and  change  in  all 
things  and  of  the  one  law  that  gives  reality  and  permanence 
amidst  this  mutability.  His  view,  as  set  forth  in  Romans 
i.  19  fif.,  is  that  there  existed  in  the  world  from  the  beginning 
a  certain  amount  of  real  percept  on  of  and  true  knowledge 
about  God  and  His  nature  and  His  relation  to  mankind.  By 
observing,  studying,  and  gradually  understanding  the  facts 
and  processes  of  the  external  world,  men  became  aware  of  the 
power  and  divinity  of  God,  which  were  manifested  therein 

But  the  deliberate  action  of  man  vitiated  this  fair  begin- 
ning. The  reason  lay  in  idolatry.  This  cause  obscures 
the  first  true  and  good  ideas  of  men  as  to  the  nature  of 
God  ;  and  thus  the  Divine  Being  is  assimilated  to  and 
represented  by  images  in  the  shape  of  man  who  is  mortal, 
and  birds  and  quadrupeds  and  reptiles.  In  idolatrous 
worship  a  necessary  and  invariable  accompaniment  was  im- 
morality ;  you  can  never  have  one  without  the  other.  This 
grows  from  bad  to  worse  in  physical  passions,  and  corrupts 
the  whole  nature  and  character  of  man. 


II.    The  Pauline  Philosophy  of  History        1 1 

In  the  following  parts  I  shall  try  to  give  a  picture  of  the 
character  of  the  Eastern  Hellenic  cities  by  which  Paul  was 
most  affected. 

We  must  clearly  understand  at  the  outset,  both  the  in- 
tensity of  Paul's  hatred  for  idolatry,  and  the  reason  and 
nature  of  that  hatred.  His  view,  as  we  have  stated  it  on 
his  own  authority  and  approximately  in  his  own  sentences 
modernised,  is  not  a  mere  expression  of  religiosity,  as  it  is 
apt  to  appear  to  the  superficial  reader.  Nor  is  it  a  mere 
abstract  philosophic  dictum  respecting  the  great  ontological 
problem  of  the  nature  of  God.  It  is,  indeed,  a  necessary 
consequence  of  his  fundamental  view.  Since  the  only 
reality  in  the  world  is  God,  any  serious  error  about  the 
nature  of  God,  z>,,  any  idolatry,  must  distort  our  conception 
of  the  world  and  of  external  nature.  That  is,  however,  in 
itself  a  mere  abstract  philosophic  opinion,  and  might  re- 
main so.  Paul  abhorred  idolatry  as  the  enemy  of  mankind, 
because  he  perceived  the  law  of  growth  in  human  nature. 
This  error  of  idolatry  must  work  itself  to  its  issue  in  the 
character  and  life  of  the  man.  As  Paul  looked  over  the 
heathen  world,  which  he  knew  since  his  birth  practically, 
both  from  the  inside  as  a  Roman  and  a  Tarsian  Hellene, 
and  from  the  outside  as  a  Hebrew,  he  saw  how  it  acted  in 
the  society  where  he  was  born.  He  saw  that  it  must  neces- 
sarily, and  that  it  did  actually,  work  itself  out  in  a  distortion 
of  the  whole  life  of  society  and  of  the  individual,  falsifying 
the  political  situation,  frustrating  all  preparation  for  the 
future,  making  the  whole  fabric  of  the  State  unhealth}-, 
rendering  the  life  and  thought  of  the  individual  diseased  and 
decadent.  If  you  examine  the  history  of  any  nation,  you 
can  see  how  the  State  becomes  unhealthy,  how  its  right 
development  is  stopped,  how  it  is  prevented  from  getting 


12      I.  PauHmsm  in  the  Gr<^co- Roman    World 

rid  of  evils  and  dangers  in  its  constitution,  by  error  as  to  the 
nature  of  God  and  the  true  relation  of  man  to  God.  Such 
is  Paul's  view. 

Accordingly,  to  the  first  Pauline  principle : 
The  Divine  alone  is  real :  all  else  is  error : 
we  can  now  add  Paul's  second  principle  : 

A  Societyy  or  a  Nation,  is  progressive  insofar  as  it  hears 
the  Divine  voice  :  all  else  is  degeneration. 
This  second  principle  throws  us  into  the  midst  of  history,  the 
growth  and  change  of  politics,  the  struggle  of  man  with  man 
and  nation  against  nation.  It  is  the  province  of  the  historian 
to  trace  the  steps  and  facts  of  life  through  which  the  degenera- 
tion or  the  progress  works  itself  out  and  makes  itself  mani- 
fest. 

Progress,  i.e.,  the  perception  of  truth,  is,  according  to  the 
Pauline  view,  open  to  all  men.  Men  are  never  so  utterly 
corrupt  that  a  return  to  truth  is  impossible.  If  they  only 
wish  it,  they  car  choose  the  good  and  refuse  the  evil.  The 
Gentiles  are  ignorant  of  the  Law  as  it  was  revealed  to  the 
Jews,  but  some  of  them,  through  their  better  nature,  act  of 
themselves  according  to  the  Law,  and  are  a  law  unto  them- 
selves :  the  practical  effect  of  the  Law  is  seen  in  their  life, 
because  it  has  been  written  by  nature  in  their  hearts,  and  they 
have  a  natural  sense  of  the  distinction  between  right  and 
wrong,  between  good  and  evil ;  and  their  conscience  works 
in  harmony  with  this  natural  Law  in  their  hearts,  prompt- 
ing them  to  choose  the  right  action,  and  making  them 
conscious  of  wrong-doing  if  they  choose  the  wrong  course 
(Rom.  ii.  14  f.).  This  beginning  of  right  never  fails  utterly  in 
human  nature,  but  it  is  made  faint  and  obscure  by  wrong- 
doing, when  men  deliberately  choose  the  evil  and  will  not 
listen  to  the  voice  of  God  in  their  hearts. 


II.    The  Pauline  Philosophy  of  History        13 

Yet  even  at  the  worst  there  remains  in  the  most  co  rupied 
man  a  sense  that  out  of  this  evil  good  will  come.  The  re- 
markable and  difficult  passage,  Romans  viii.  19-22,  states 
this  emphatically.  We  all  are  in  some  degree  aware  that 
evil  is  wrong,  because  it  is  painful,  and  the  pain  is  the  pre- 
paration for  the  birth  of  better  things.  The  eager  watciu'ng 
expectancy  of  th  :  universe  (as  of  a  runner  with  his  eye 
fixed  on  the  goal,  or  of  a  wrestler  about  to  come  to  grips 
with  his  adversary)  waiteth  for  the  revealing  of  the  so  is  of 
God,  For  the  creation  was  subjected  to  vanity,  not  of  its 
own  will,  but  by  reason  of  man  who  subjected  it,  and  in  this 
subjection  there  arises  a  hope  that  the  creation  itself  also 
shall  be  delivered  from  the  bondage  of  corruption  so  as  to 
attain  unto  the  liberty  of  the  glory  of  the  children  of  God. 
For  we  know  that  the  whole  creation  in  all  its  parts  is  groan- 
ing in  the  birth-pangs  from  which  shall  emerge  a  better  condi- 
tion, and  we  also  who  are  Christians  and  have  already  within 
ourselves  the  first  practical  effects  of  the  Spirit's  action,  are 
still  in  the  pain  and  hope  of  the  nascent  redemption. 

This  Pauline  doctrine  bursts  the  bonds  of  the  narrower 
Judaism,  and  rises  to  a  higher  and  broader  outlook.  Such 
a  philosophic  view  could  not  have  been  thought  out  in  the 
form  which  Paul  gave  it  without  a  training  in  Greek  philo- 
sophy. It  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  best  side  of  Hebrew 
thought  and  prophecy ;  but  it  was  utterly  and  absolutely 
inconsistent  with  the  practical  facts  of  the  narrower  retro- 
grade Judaism  in  his  time.  The  man  who  thought  thus 
could  not  remain  permanenly  in  harmony  with  the  bigoted 
Pharisaic  party  in  Jerusalem, ^  which  was  inexorably  ©im- 
posed to  the  early  followers  of  Christ,  not  because  they 
were  Christian,  but  because  they  were  progressive  and  grow- 
ing out  of  the  narrow  old  Judaism. 


14      I-  Paulinisvt  in  the  Grceco-Rotnan   World 

It  was  only  in  maturer  years  that  Paul  became  fully  con- 
scious of  this  truth ;  but  as  he  became  able  to  formulate  it 
clearly  to  himself  and  teach  it  to  others,  he  also  became 
aware  that  it  had  been  implicit  from  the  beginning  in  his 
thought.  He  had  it  in  his  nature  from  birth.  It  was  fostered 
by  the  circumstances  of  his  childhood.  He  had  come  in 
contact  with  pagans,  and  knew  that  they  were  not  monsters 
(as  they  seemed  to  the  Palestinian  zealots),  but  human 
beings.  He  was  so  indebted  to  them,  that  he  felt  bound, 
in  return  for  what  he  had  learned  from  them,  to  go  and 
tell  them  of  the  truth  which  had  been  revealed  (Rom.  i. 
14).  He  had  learned  by  experience  of  the  promptings  to 
good,  of  the  preference  for  the  right,  of  self-blame  for 
wrong-doing,  which  were  clearly  manifest  in  their  nature. 
He  had  also  been  aware  of  that  eager  longing  for  the 
coming  of  something  better,  of  a  new  era,  of  a  Saviour,  of 
God  incarnate  in  human  form  on  the  earth,  which  was 
so  remarkable  a  feature  in  Roman  life  before  and  after  his 
birth. 

The  third  principle  of  the  Pauline  philosophy  of  history, 
therefore,  may  be  thus  expressed  : 

All  men  mid  every  huvian  society  can  hear  the  Divine 
voice ;  but  they  must  co-operate  ere  the  communica- 
tion can  take  place. 
There  was,  in  Paul's  opinion,  a  certain  amount  of  progres- 
sive force,  a  certain  perception  of  Divine  truth,  in  the  pagan 
world  ;  and  this  was  entirely  caught  up  and  incorporated  in 
his  teaching,  which  was  the  complete  revelation  of  God.  As 
I  believe,  he  deliberately  and  consciously  aimed  at  bringing 
together  on  the  higher  plane  of  Christian  thought  and  life  all 
that  was  true  and  real  in  the  pagan  world  ;  and  the  passages 
which  I  have  quoted  above  from  his  own  writings  show  that 


III.   Pauline  Contrasted  with  Modern  Method     15 

he  believed  that  much  in  the  pagan  thoughts  and  hopes  was 
good  and  true. 

It  is  true  that  he  nowhere  defines  his  intentions  with  respect 
to  the  contemporary  world  except  in  the  strictly  religious 
point  of  view.  He  nowhere  clearly  states  his  attitude  to  the 
pagan  world  apart  from  its  reh'gious  and  moral  aspects  (which 
were  to  him  abhorrent  and  detestable),  but  he  acknowledges 
that  he  had  learned  from  it,  that  he  was  indebted  to  it,  that 
he  was  bound  to  pay  his  debt,  and  that  his  young  Churches 
should  regulate  with  wisdom  their  conduct  to  the  pagan 
world  around  and  buy  to  the  full  all  that  was  profitable  for 
them  from  the  opportunity  that  the  world  afforded  ;  "  what- 
soever is  true,  or  hol)^,  or  just,  or  pure,  or  courteous,  or  re- 
putable, all  excellence,  all  merit,  include  these  in  the  account 
books  of  your  life,"  from  whatever  origin  they  come,  they  are 
for  you. 

But  it  was  not  his  object  in  any  of  his  writings  to  set 
forth  such  general  ideas.  They  are  all  occasional  writings, 
devoted  to  the  immediately  pressing  problems  of  his  corre- 
spondents. Yet  from  the  counsel  about  details  the  general 
principles  of  his  policy  are  recoverable.  Also  we  may  fairly 
use  in  evidence  the  subsequent  influence  of  Paul's  teaching  as 
seen  in  the  following  centuries. 

§  III.    The  Pauline  Contrasted  with  the  Modern 

Method. 

Regarding  the  Pauline  view  as  a  scientific  or  philosophic 
theory  of  the  progress  of  history,  one  observes  at  once  how 
diametrically  opposed  it  is  to  the  fashionable  modern  scienti- 
fic conception  about  the  right  method  in  the  investigation  of 
ancient  religion.  The  modern  method  is  based  on  the 
assumption   that  there  takes  place  normally  a  continuous 


1 6      I.  Paulinism  in  the  Graco-Roman   World 

development  in  religion,  in  thought,  and  in  civilisation,  since 
primitive  times ;  that  such  a  development  has  been  practi- 
cally universal  among  the  more  civilised  races ;  that,  as  to 
certain  less  civilised  races,  either  they  have  remained  station- 
ary, or  progress  among  them  has  been  abnormally  slow  ;  that 
the  primitive  in  religion  is  barbarous,  savage,  bloodthirsty 
and  low  in  the  scale  of  civilisation,  and  that  the  line  of 
growth  normally  and  usually  is  towards  the  milder,  the 
more  gracious,  and  the  nobler  forms  of  religion  ;  that  the 
primitive  type  of  religion  can  be  recovered  by  studying  the 
savage  of  the  present  day,  and  that  the  lowest  savage  is  the 
most  primitive. 

Nowadays  we  are  all  devotees  of  the  theory  of  develop- 
ment: it  is  no  longer  a  theory,  it  has  become  the  basis  and 
guiding  principle  of  our  thought  and  mind  :  we  must  see 
development  everywhere.  But  it  is  necessary  to  be  very 
sure  first  of  all  that  we  have  got  hold  of  the  right  law  of 
development  in  history ;  and  we  are  sometimes  too  hasty. 
We  can  easily  arrange  religions  in  a  series  from  the  lowest 
to  the  highest,  and  we  are  wont  to  assume  that  this  series 
represents  the  historical  development  of  religion  from  the 
most  primitive  to  the  most  advanced.  The  fetish,  the 
totem  and  the  sacred  animals,  and  so  up  step  by  step  to 
Jehovah  and  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant.    Is  that  the  true  line  ? 

You  observe  that  the  assumptions  here  are  very  serious. 
Is  the  modern  savage  really  primitive?  Paul  would  have 
said  that  he  represents  the  last  stage  of  degeneration,  that  he 
is  the  end  and  not  the  beginning,  that  he  has  lost  almost 
everything  that  is  really  primitive,  that  he  has  fallen  so 
completely  from  the  ancient  harmony  with  the  order  of 
nature  and  sympathy  with  the  Divine  as  to  be  on  the  verge 
of  death,  and  an  outrage  on  the  world  and  on  human  nature. 


III.   Pauline  Contrasted  with  Modern  Method     17 

Who  is  right,  Paul  or  the  moderns  ?  For  my  own  part,  I 
confess  that  my  experience  and  reading  show  nothing  to 
confirm  the  modern  assumptions  in  religious  history,  and  a 
great  deal  to  confirm  Paul.  Wherever  evidence  exists,  with 
the  rarest  exceptions,  the  history  of  religion  amf)ng  men  is 
a  history  of  degeneration ;  and  the  development  of  a  few 
Western  nations  in  invention  and  in  civilisation  during 
recent  centuries  should  not  blind  us  to  the  fact  that  among 
the  vast  majority  of  the  nations  the  history  of  manners 
and  civilisation  is  a  story  of  degeneration.  Wherever  you 
find  a  religion  that  grows  purer  and  loftier,  you  find  the 
prophet,  the  thinker,  the  teacher,  who  is  in  sympathy  with 
the  Divine,  and  he  tells  you  that  he  is  speaking  the  message 
of  God,  not  his  own  message.  Are  these  prophets  all  im- 
postors and  deceivers  ?  or  are  they  speaking  the  truth  ? 
Is  it  not  the  fact  of  human  history  that  man,  standing 
alone,  degenerates  ;  and  that  he  progresses  only  where  there 
is  in  him  so  much  sympathy  with  and  devotion  to  the 
Divine  life  as  to  keep  the  social  body  pure  and  sweet  and 
healthy  ? 

The  appeal  must  be  to  facts.  Let  us  cast  a  glance  back 
over  Mediterranean  history  and  the  evolution  and  vicissitudes 
of  its  civilisation.  On  the  Mediterranean  lands  and  waters 
you  have  for  thousands  of  years  the  centre  of  human  civilisa- 
tion and  knowledge,  and  there  best  of  all  you  can  detect  the 
principle  of  growth  in  human  history. 

The  outstanding  achievement  of  the  East  Mediterranean 
world,  the  great  service  which  the  peoples  of  the  Levant 
rendered  to  mankind,  was  that  they  conquered  nature  and 
made  it  obedient  and  useful  to  man.  The  Mediterranean 
lands  are  not  like  the  great  plains  of  the  Canadian  North- 
West,    productive  almost  spontaneously,  gifted    by   nature 


1 8      I.   Paulinism  in  the  Grceco-Roman   World 

with  a  great  depth  of  rich  soil.  They  are  to  a  large  extent 
hilly  or  even  mountainous ;  a  considerable  portion  of  them 
is  bare  and  rocky  ;  where  there  is  soil  it  is  in  great  part  so 
dry  as  to  be  absolutely  useless  without  artificial  irrigation ; 
the  rich  valleys  are  rarely  extensive,  and  large  part  of  those 
valleys  was  originally  marsh.  Almost  everywhere  a  vast 
amount  of  labour  and  a  high  degree  of  skill,  forethought  and 
knowledge  had  to  be  applied  before  the  soil  became  useful 
to  man  and  able  to  support  a  large  population. 

If  the  old  Mediterranean  lands  are  dotted  all  over  with 
great  monuments,  mostly  of  a  religious  character,  graves  of 
large  size  or  elaborately  ornate  temples,  pyramids,  etc., 
which  astonish  the  modern  mind  as  it  estimates  the  amount 
of  work  and  time  and  skill  that  must  have  been  expended 
on  them,  it  is  no  less  the  case  that  the  expanse  of  ancient 
history  is  dotted  over  with  the  records  of  great  engineering 
works  serving  the  uses  of  man,  works  which  astonish  us  not 
only  by  the  vast  amount  of  hand  labour  performed  with 
simple  tools  in  their  construction,  but  far  more  by  the  re- 
sources, the  wide  outlook,  the  power  of  adapting  means  to 
gain  a  far-distant  end,  the  habit  of  living  for  the  future  and 
expending  labour,  not  to  win  one's  daily  bread,  not  even  to 
provide  the  year's  supply  of  corn  or  to  acquire  immediate 
wealth,  but  to  achieve  works  which  could  be  onl/  remotely 
profitable  or  serviceable.  How  was  the  knowledge  acquired 
which  made  mankind  able  to  devise  and  plan  out  such  great 
schemes  as  the  draining  of  the  Boeotian  plain  or  the  Lernaean 
marsh,  the  forming  of  a  discharge  for  the  waters  of  many 
upland  land-locked  valleys  in  Asia  Minor  and  Greece,  and 
later  in  Italy,  the  regulation  of  the  course  of  considerable 
rivers,  the  cutting  of  a  carriage  road  across  great  mountains 
like  that  which  goes  through  the  Cilician  Gates  ? 


III.   Pauline  Contrasted  with  Modern  Method     19 

The  ancients  tell  us  that  the  later  works  of  this  kind  were 
done  by  historical  persons  like  the  Emperor  Claudius  and 
Curius  Dentatus,  or  by  half-historical  figures  like  Servius 
Tullius.  When  you  go  back  a  few  centuries  earlier,  you 
find  purely  mythological  names,  as,  for  example,  that  of 
Mopsus,  Apollo's  prophet  and  the  divine  guide  of  Apollo's 
colonising  people,  clinging  to  such  great  works  of  improve- 
ment or  defence.  When  you  go  back  to  works  still  more 
remote  in  time,  you  learn  that  they  were  performed  by  the 
god  himself,  as  for  example,  Herakles :  the  ancient  mind 
here  felt  that  it  had  got  beyond  human  power,  and  it  took 
refuge  with  God. 

On  a  first  glance  one  might  be  inclined  to  say  that  in  the 
nearer  past,  to  which  historical  record  extended,  the  man 
who  had  achieved  the  work  was  remembered  and  named, 
and  only  for  the  enterprises  of  a  remoter  time,  of  which  the 
record  had  perished,  did  the  popular  fancy  create  a  Divine 
originator.  Up  to  a  certain  point  this  is  true.  It  is  a  way 
of  stating  the  facts  which  is  superficially  accurate,  but  which 
misses  the  real  deep-lying  truth.  How  superficial,  how 
fundamentally  untrue  it  is  to  say  that  the  Emperor  Claudius 
drained  the  Fucine  Lake.  He  inherited  the  knowledge 
which  others  had  accumulated ;  he  had  learned  from  the 
experience  of  generations  and  ages  past  that  such  enter- 
prises were  possible;  he  set  in  motion  the  mass  of  skilled 
labour  which  had  been  organised  before  his  time.  He  de- 
serves all  credit  for  what  he  did  ;  he  had  mastered  this 
lesson  of  the  past.  But  only  in  a  very  modified  sense  can 
the  draining  of  the  lake  be  attributed  to  him.  The  same  is 
the  case  with  every  man  who  has  the  credit  for  any  of  those 
great  and  beneficent  works,  and  who  in  part  deserves  the 
credit.     It  was  the  slowly  gathered  wisdom  of  the  past  that 


20      I.   Paulinism  in  the  GrcEco-Roman   World 

both  made  those  works  possible,  and  taught  intelligent 
administrators  what  there  was  to  gain  in  the  distant  future 
by  the  effort  and  expenditure  needed  to  accomplish  them. 
The  treasured  and  gathered  wisdom  of  the  past  inspired  the 
design  and  achieved  the  execution  of  all  those  works.  In 
administration  the  knowledge  of  what  can  be  done  and  what 
will  be  worth  doing  is  all-important. 

And  so  the  ancient  accounts,  which  invoked  the  aid  of  the 
God,  expressed,  after  all,  in  a  certain  sense  and  properly 
understood,  the  truth.  The  God  to  whom  the  people  looked 
for  guidance  and  counsel,  was,  so  to  say,  the  imaginative 
embodiment  or  personification  of  the  accumulated  experi- 
ence and  the  growing  wisdom  of  the  race.  Anything  that 
originated  from  a  knowledge  wider  than  the  range  of  man 
himself  was,  in  a  real  sense,  the  work  of  the  God,  performed 
through  the  Divine  impulse  and  under  the  Divine  guidance. 

Less  striking,  but  really  almost  more  wonderful,  than  the 
great  feats  of  early  engineering,  is  the  high  development  of 
ancient  agriculture,  arboriculture,  and  domestication  and 
improvement  of  the  useful  animals.  I  happened  to  be 
talking  two  days  ago  to  Dr.  W.  G.  Rutherford,^  my  con- 
temporary as  an  undergraduate.  He  had  been  reading  the 
old  Roman  work  on  agriculture,  and  was  full  of  admiration 
of  the  wisdom  and  knowledge  that  lay  behind  Cato ;  what 
centuries  of  experience  and  observation  were  implied  in  the 
rules  of  agriculture  that  the  old  Censor  prescribed. 

Most  impressive  of  all  to  me  personally  is  the  cultivation 
of  the  olive,  beyond  all  others  the  tree  of  civilisation.  From 
the  day  you  plant  the  tree,  about  sixteen  to  eighteen  years 
must  pass  before  it  begins  to  produce  any  return,  seventeen 
years  of  care,  work,  and  unremunerative  preparation.  What 
a  high  standard  of  real  civilisation,  what  stability  and  order, 


III.   Pauline  Contrasted  with  Modern  Method 


21 


what  true  wisdom  must  there  be  in  the  society  where  men 
can  wait  so  long  in  full  confidence  that  he  who  sows  will 
reap.  And  what  wealth  is  imparted  to  an  otherwise  unpro- 
ductive region  by  the  olive.  Professor  Theobald  Fischer, 
who  has  studied  the  geographical  and  economic  botany  of 
the  Mediterranean  lands  with  special  care,  mentions  some 
typical  examples  of  what  can  be  done  for  a  country  by  the 
cultivation  of  the  olive.  In  Southern  France,  in  the  Arron- 
dissement  Grasse,  one-third  of  the  country  is  planted  with 
olives  and  supported  a  population  of  60,000  in  the  year  1880, 
the  other  two-thirds  which  grew  no  olives  contained  a  popu- 
lation of  10,000 ;  in  the  olive-growing  district  of  Tunisia, 
1 50,000  people  live  in  an  area  of  600  square  kilometres, 
but  close  by  are  districts  inhabited  by  five  or  six  people  to 
the  square  kilometre.'* 

In   agriculture  we  find  the  same  historical   principle   of 
evolution  as  in  the  great  engineering  works,  which  widened 
the  area  of  agriculture.     Elsewhere   I   have  attempted  to 
trace  the  religious  character  of  the  rules  of  domestication  of 
animals,    agriculture,   horticulture,   as  well   as  of  the  rules 
regulating  the  conduct  of  men  in  their  social  relation,  to 
ensure  the  sanitation  and  cleanliness  of  town  life.^     Every- 
where you  come  back  to  the  same  first  cause.     The  Divine 
power  and  wisdom  was  popularly  believed  to  have  taught, 
nourished  and  preserved  both  man  and   society.     God,  or 
rather  the  Goddess,  for  early  man  regarded  the  mother,  their 
teacher  and  their  guide,  as  the  type  of  the  Divine  power  in 
its  beneficent  character,  is  wise,  bountiful  and  tutelary ;  man 
is  merely  obedient  and  receptive.     In  the  operations  of  agri- 
culture, unskilled  work,  such  as  man  could  apply,  was  of  small 
avail.     The  really  important  factor  was  divinely  given,  viz., 
knowledge  and  skill,  prudence  and  forethought.     The  mere 


22      I.   Paulinism  in  the  Grceco-Roman   World 

labour  of  man  was  useless  and  unproductive  without  this 
guiding  wisdom  ;  and  the  wisdom  was  embodied  in  the  rules 
and  ritual  prescribed  by  religion.  Thus  directed,  the  labour 
of  many  generations  raised  great  tracts  of  barren  land  to 
the  highest  standard  of  productiveness.  When  the  guidance 
ceased,  what  was  the  result  ?  ^  Look  for  a  moment  at  the 
present  state  of  the  Eastern  Mediterranean  lands  in  com- 
parison with  their  wealth  and  inexhaustible  productiveness 
in  ancient  times.  Much — indeed  the  greater  part — of  the 
land  which  was  once  so  highly  cultivated  produces  little  or 
nothing  ;  it  has  gone  back  to  its  primitive  condition.  You 
can  traverse  coast-lands  for  hundreds  and  hundreds  of  miles 
continuously,  where  practically  nothing  is  grown,  or  could  in 
the  present  state  of  the  soil  grow,  except  the  minimum  of 
wheat  and  barley  to  feed  a  very  scanty  population  and  their 
few  poor  horses  and  cattle,  and  where  not  a  single  tree  is 
now  cultivated.  Yet  those  very  districts  were  in  ancient 
times  proverbial  for  richness  and  wealth.  Nothing  can  now 
be  hoped  for  there — not  merely  is  there  no  certainty  that  he 
who  sows  will  reap,  but  also  capital  will  in  modern  times 
never  be  used  in  enterprises  where  so  many  years  must 
elapse  before  any  return  can  be  looked  for.  We  must  have 
quick  returns ;  but  civilisation  was  not  made  by  people  who 
were  bent  on  quick  returns. 

Our  survey  of  the  Mediterranean  lands  reveals  no  sign  of 
development.  It  shows  us  only  a  process  of  degeneration 
and  decay,  and  offers  little  hope  of  revival  in  the  present 
economic  system.  Now  in  which  state  of  society  is  the 
greater  wisdom  seen,  in  the  old  state  which  by  long  toil, 
directed  to  a  distant  future  end,  made  that  country  rich 
and  populous,  or  in  the  present  system  which  necessarily 
renounces  such  tasks  because  the  return  on  outlay  is  so 


III.   Pauline  Contrasted  with  Modci^n  Method    23 

distant?  One  of  the  sure  sif^ns  of  a  well-ordered  and  stabla 
society  is  that  in  it  the  remoter  future  can  be  preferred  to 
the  immediate  profit ;  and  Browning  states  the  true  prin- 
ciple : 

Oh,  if  we  draw  a  circle  premature, 

Heedless  of  far  gain, 
Greedy  for  quick  returns  of  profit,  sure 

Bad  is  our  bargain  I 

P)Ut  it  is  in  this  period  which  we  have  just  been  contem- 
plating; that  the  modern  scientific  study  of  religion  expatiates. 
Here  it  finds  its  favourite  field  for  exercise  and  its  most 
gratifying  examples.  Here  it  finds  the  evolution  of  religion 
from  the  savage  to  the  civilised  state  by  a  natural  process 
of  growth  from  the  primitive  to  the  hifjher.  When  the 
Mediterranean  religion  according  to  the  modern  fashionable 
theory  was  little,  if  at  all,  above  the  religious  idea  of  the 
modern  savage,  -history^  shows  that  it  was  producing  the 
Meditenanean  agriculture  and  prosperity.  When  it  had  had 
plenty  of  time  to  develop,  the  prosperity  ceased,  and  agri- 
culture through  neglect  became  impossible,  and  civiiisatiun 
was  destroyed  over  great  part  of  the  Mediterranean  world. 
One  who  looks  at  the  facts  must  ask  whether  religion 
naturally  develops  from  the  lower  to  the  higher  stage,  or 
whether  Paul  was  not  right  in  declaring  that  religion  tends 
to  degenerate  among  men.  So  far  as  the  history  of  the 
Mediterranean  lands  reaches  I  find  only  degeneration,  cor- 
rected from  time  to  time  by  the  influence  of  the  great  prophets 
and  teachers  like  Paul. 

Whether  there  lies  behind  this  historical  period  a  primitive 
savage  period,  I  am  not  bold  enough  or  skilful  enough  to 
judge.  I  can  only  look  for  facts  in  the  light  of  history. 
I  dare  not  rush  into  the  darkness  that  lies  behind.      The 


24      I.  Paulinism  in  the  GrcEco-Roman   World 

primitive  savage,  who  develops  naturally  out  of  the  stage 
of  Totemism  into  the  wisdom  of  Sophocles  and  Socrates,  or 
he  who  transforms  his  fetish  in  the  course  of  many  genera- 
tions through  the  Elohistic  stage  into  the  Jehovah  of  the 
Hebrews,  is  unknown  to  me.  I  find  nothing  even  remotely 
resembling  him  in  the  savages  of  modern  times.  I  cannot 
invent  for  myself  a  primitive  savage  of  such  marvellous 
potentialities,  when  I  find  that  the  modern  savage  is  devoid 
of  any  potentiality,  in  many  cases  unable  to  stand  side  by 
side  with  a  more  civilised  race,  a  mere  worthless  degenerate 
who  has  lost  even  his  vital  stamina,  in  other  cases,  when  he 
can  survive,  showing  at  least  no  capacity  to  improve  except 
through  imitation  of  external  models.  If  you  seek  in  the 
modern  savage  an  analogous  case  to  the  early  Mediterranean 
beginners  of  civilisation,  you  must  take  your  savage  as  you 
find  him.  It  is  an  unscientific  process  to  invent  a  primitive 
savage,  who  resembles  the  modern  in  the  lowness  of  his  re- 
ligious ideas,  but  differs  from  him  by  a  wealth  of  potential 
development  in  religion  and  civilisation. 

But,  it  may  be  said,  in  ancient  Greece  and  in  early  Hebrew 
history,  you  find  numerous  examples  of  Totemism  and  other 
savage  religious  customs  and  ideas.  That  is  perfectly  true. 
But,  in  the  first  place,  these  are  the  dead  twigs,  the  weak 
offshoots  which  were  unfit  to  live,  on  the  tree  of  Hellenism. 
You  may  as  well  seek  the  explanation  of  the  splendid  tree  in 
those  failures,  which  abound  everywhere  when  you  examine 
it  closely,  as  seek  the  reason  for  the  splendid  development  of 
Hellenism  and  Hebrew  religion  in  those  faults  and  abortions 
and  errors.  Hellenism  flourished  and  grew,  not  in  virtue  of, 
but  in  spite  of,  those  facts  which  show  the  mind  of  the  savage 
and  the  degenerate.  Those  facts  are  all  mere  instances  of 
degeneration.    Degeneration  is  not  confined  to  the  later  ages 


III.   Pauline  Contrasted  with  Modern  Method     25 


or  to  any  one  age  of  religious  history.  It  lies  deep  in  human 
nature.  It  is  as  old  as  man.  It  has  been  going  on  in  all 
religions  and  in  all  ages  from  the  beginning;  and  you  find 
examples  of  it  in  all  ages  down  to  the  present  time. 

Moreover,  it  is  not  the  case  that  all  superficial  appearances, 
say,  of  Totemism,  are  really  examples  of  it.  A  dear  and 
honoured  friend  of  mine,  long  since  dead  too  young,  under 
whose  tuition  I  was  nearly  thirty  years  ago  an  enthusiastic 
student  of  M'Lennan  and  devotee  of  Totemism  and  all  that 
appertains  thereto,  used  to  regard  the  serpent  as  the  totem 
of  the  family  of  David.  I  have  heard  him  often  converse 
on  this  topic  with  the  eloquence,  the  conviction,  and  the 
easy  mastery  of  vast  learning  that  made  him  almost  unique 
among  scholars,  while  he  demonstrated  with  singular  per- 
suasiveness that  the  Brazen  Serpent  of  the  Wilderness  was 
the  family  totem  elevated  for  the  veneration  of  the  nation. 
But  I  find  nowhere  that  the  modern  totem  of  a  fomily  is 
raised  aloft  for  the  veneration  of  other  families  :  these  have 
their  own  totems.  It  is  characteristic  of  all  degeneration  in 
religion  that  the  devotees  of  each  cult  guard  it  jealously  as  a 
private  possession,  \\hich  they  must  keep  to  themselves  lest 
others  should  share  in  its  possession  and  diminish  the  advan- 
tages of  its  present  possessors.  Had  the  serpent  been  a 
family  totem,  it  would  not  have  been  made  national.  While 
I  quite  admit  that  the  Brazen  Serpent  was  an  instance  of 
savage  ritual  at  an  early  period  in  Hebrew  history,  I  cannot 
admit  that  it  was  the  totem  of  one  family  or  one  tribe.  Not 
all  serpent  worship  is  Totemism. 

Accordingly,  consideration  of  the  actual  facts  leads  back  to 
the  same  beginning  as  that  which  Paul  assumes.  In  the 
remotest  period  of  Mediterranean  history  to  which  human 
research  can  at  present  penetrate,  if  it  restricts  itself  to  the 


26      I.   Paulinis77i  in  the  GrcBco- Roman    World 

observation  of  facts  and  the  drawing  of  cautious  warrantable 
inferences  from  the  facts — in  that  earliest  period  we  have 
come,  not  to  savages  and  Totemism  and  all  the  paraphernalia 
of  primitive  religion,  as  many  of  the  moderns  picture  it  to 
themselves  and  to  their  pupils,  but  to  a  theocracy,  to  an 
agency  of  prophets  who  make  known  the  will  of  the  goddess 
to  her  people,  to  a  well-justified  belief  in  the  motherly  wisdom 
of  the  Divine  being  and  the  truth-speaking  of  the  prophets. 
We  have  come  also  to  many  sporadic  examples  of  Totemism 
and  other  customs  and  ideas  of  the  modern  savage.  The 
savage  has  been  and  is  always  with  us  in  history.  But  these 
are  merely  the  signs  and  fruits  of  degeneration.  It  was  not 
through  them  that  the  old  religion  obtained  and  kept  its 
hold  on  the  minds  of  men.  As  they,  in  the  process  of  in- 
creasing degeneration,  became  stronger  and  more  frequent, 
the  religion  lost  in  great  degree  its  influence,  or  re- 
tained its  hold  only  on  the  least  educated  in  the  form  of 
popular  superstitions.  Its  power  to  guide,  to  teach,  and  to 
do  good  was  what  gave  it  originally  its  power  over  the 
minds  of  men.  What  was  true  in  it  made  it  live :  the 
symptoms  of  savagery  in  it  made  it  die.  There  were  bull- 
roarers  and  other  paraphernalia  or  savage  ritual  in  the 
Eleusinian  worship,  but  it  was  not  these  that  made  it  a  power 
in  Greek  life  and  caused  it  to  be  respected  and  lauded  by 
Sophocles  and  Socrates.  The  method  of  studying  ancient 
religion  which  concentrates  attention  on  these  signs  of 
savagery  and  degeneracy  loses  sight  of  everj^thing  which 
makes  ancient  religion  M^orthy  of  the  historian's  study. 
These  barbarous  and  degenerate  elements  existed,  and  there 
was  not  sufficient  vitality  in  the  people  and  in  the  religion  to 
eliminate  them.  The  race  of  prophets  died  out.  The  needed 
sympathy  with  the  Divine  nature  ceased.     The  degeneracy 


III.   Pauline  Contrasted  with  Modern  Method    27 

spread  unchecked,  until  the  conning  of  Christianity  and  the 
reaction  against  Christianity  imparted  a  new  life  and  vigour 
to  the  old  paganism. 

The  modern  theory  is  expressed  in  its  sharpest  and  most 
extreme  terms  by  my  friend  M.  Salomon  Reinach,  in  the 
Revue  des  Etudes  Grecques,  1906,  p.  344,  where  he  criticises 
M.  Paul  Foucart  on  the  ground  that  he  "  a  trop  perdu  de  vue, 
ou  n'a  peut  8tre  pas  reconnu  le  caracterc  primitif  et  magique 
du  rituel  ^leusinien.  Tout  ritiiel  p7-iinitif  est  a  t'origine 
magique!*  The  words  which  I  have  italicised  go  further 
than  some  modern  scholars  who  adopt  a  similar  method  of 
study  and  reasoning  would  be  willing  to  follow  him;  but 
they  are  a  logical  statement  of  the  principle  involved  in  the 
modern  method  :  Religion  begins  in  magic  and  gradually 
elevates  itself  to  a  higher  stage  of  thought. 

On  the  contrary,  the  view  to  which  1  have  found  myself 
gradually  driven  is  that  magic  is  incident  to  the  degradation 
of  primitive  religion  ;  religion  must  either  develop  to  a  higher 
stage  or  degenerate,  but  cannot  remain  stationary ;  in  a 
society  where  the  standard  of  thought  and  moral  judgment 
is  rising  amid  part  of  the  community,  any  old  religious  idea 
or  rite  which  persists  among  the  unprogressive  and  uneducated 
masses  tends  to  lose  the  higher  possibilities  which  once  were 
latent  in  it,  to  be  hardened  into  a  lifeless  superstition,  and  to 
become  a  magic  ritual  or  formula.  Take  for  example  the 
idea  characteristic  of  early  Hellenism  that  the  gods  are 
jealous  of  too  great  and  outstanding  success  or  power  or 
happiness  falling  to  the  lot  of  any  man,  and  interfere  to 
prevent  this  even  by  slaying  the  man,  and  that  it  is  wise 
and  prudent  for  man  to  propitiate  them  by  voluntarily  sacri- 
ficing part  of  his  possessions.  This  primitive  idea  is  capable 
of  being  either  developed  in  a  good  way  or  degraded  into 


28      I.   Paulinisnt  in  the  Grccco- Roman   World 

a  debased  and  debasing  superstition.  On  the  one  hand,  it 
became  in  the  hands  of  the  tragedians  the  deepest  principle 
of  the  Greek  drama,  that  great  success  produces  pride,  pride 
crime,  crime  punishment,  and  punishment  wisdom,  which  is 
expressed  in  various  forms  in  the  action  of  many  tragedies. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  was  degraded  into  the  fear  of  the  evil 
eye  and  of  baleful  influence  in  other  forms,  which  ever  lie  in 
wait  for  men  and  must  be  guarded  against  by  charms  and 
protective  symbols  or  gestures.  Such  degradation  is  ex- 
tremely early,  and  the  degraded  forms  are  thought  to  be 
primitive  by  those  who  assume  the  principle  of  development 
from  the  lower  to  the  higher ;  but  they  are  really  secondary, 
not  primitive. 

This  may  serve  as  an  example  of  the  general  law,  which 
the  present  writer  has  attempted  to  work  out  in  more  detail 
for  Greece  and  Asia  Minor,  showing  how  the  really  primitive 
religion  was  a  consecration  of  the  rules  and  practices  that 
were  useful  for  the  individual  and  for  society,  these  rules 
being  determined  by  the  experience  and  growing  wisdom  of 
the  race  and  enforced  by  the  religious  sanction,  so  that  "  the 
life  of  a  simple  community  was  ordered  and  prescribed  from 
birth  to  death  in  a  series  of  religious  formulas  for  conduct, 
personal  purity,  relation  to  others  in  the  family  and  in  the 
community,  management  of  the  household  and  of  agriculture 
and  farm  economy,  etc. "  ^  Many  causes  tended  to  prevent 
development  to  the  higher  stage,  and  where  not  developed 
such  religious  formulae  become  debased  and  misunderstood, 
as  the  most  superficial  glance  into  the  rules  of  purity,  for 
example,  or  the  distinction  of  clean  and  unclean  foods,  would 
show.  Yet  ev^en  so  late  as  the  age  of  Paul  a  considerable 
residuum  of  wisdom  and  usefulness  remained  in  those  ritual- 
istic rules,  and  convinced  him  that  in  the  beginning  men 


III.   Pauline  Contrasted  with  Modern  Method    29 


were  sensitive  to  the  Divine  truth,  until  their  perception  was 
confused  and  clouded  by  idolatry. 

That  Paul  was  right  in  regarding  this  part  of  the  religious 
law  of  the  Pagans  as  true  and  Divine  we  can  hardly  doubt 
or  deny,  when  we  observe  how  much  harm  has  been  caused 
to  society  by  the  loss  of  it.  Much  of  that  healthy  teaching, 
which  was  enforced  on  all  as  obligatory  religious  ceremonial, 
has  ceased  in  modern  time  to  be  known  to  or  practised  by 
the  poor  and  ill-educated  classes.  This  widespread  ignorance 
and  neglect  of  the  fundamental  principles  on  which  comfort, 
health  and  happiness  in  life  depend,  is  now  a  serious  danger, 
even  among  the  most  civilised  nations.  It  must  be  acknow- 
ledged that  the  tendency  of  the  Christian  Church  to  concen- 
trate its  teaching  on  theoretical  dogma  and  Church  ritual, 
and  to  lose  hold  on  the  practical  household  life  of  the  people, 
has  contributed  to  spread  this  ignorance  by  allowing  the 
ancient  stock  of  household  wisdom  to  fall  into  oblivion  and 
even  actively  discouraging  it  as  involved  with  superstition. 
It  would  be  easy  to  quote  cases  in  which  modern  Christian 
missionaries  have  done  grave  injury  to  their  converts  by  for- 
bidding them  to  continue  old  and  wise  sanitary  practices, 
because  they  had  been  enforced  by  pagan  religious  law  and 
took  the  form  of  service  to  a  pagan  deity. 

Beginning  the  study  of  Greek  Religion  as  a  follower  of 
Robertson  Smith  and  M'Lennan,  and  accepting  the  Totcmist 
theory  as  the  key  of  truth,  I  was  forced  by  the  evidence  to 
the  view  that  degeneration  is  the  outstanding  fact  in  religious 
history,  and  that  the  modern  theory  often  takes  the  last 
products  of  degeneracy  as  the  facts  of  primitive  religion. 
Having  attained  this  view  I  recognised  that  it  was  the  basis 
of  the  Pauline  philosophy.  In  this  Paul  adopted  the  opinion 
current  in   pagan  society  and   in   pagan   philosophy.     The 


30      I.   Paulinism  in  the  GrcEco-Roman   World 

view  practically  universal  in  the  ancient  world  was  that  decay 
and  degeneration  was  the  law  of  all  things  ;  that  the  Golden 
Age  lay  in  the  beginning  and  every  subsequent  period  was 
a  step  further  down  from  the  primitive  period  of  goodness, 
happiness  and  sympathy  with  the  Divine  nature.  We  are 
too  apt  to  pooh-pooh  this  ancient  doctrine  as  merely  an  old 
fashion,  springing  from  the  natural  tendency  of  mankind  to 
praise  the  former  times  and  ways.  But  it  was  much  more 
than  this.  It  was  the  reasoned  view  of  the  philosophers. 
It  coloured  almost  all  Greek  and  Roman  literature.  It  lay 
deep  in  the  heart  of  the  pagan  world.  It  produced  the  tone 
of  sadness  which  is  hardly  ever  absent  from  the  poetry  of 
Greece  and  Rome,  heard  as  an  occasional  note  even  in  its 
poems  of  pleasure.  A  feeling  like  this  cannot  safely  be  set 
aside  as  false.  It  must  be  explained  ;  and  the  only  explana- 
tion is  that  it  arose  from  the  universal  perce,)tion  of  the  fact 
that  the  history  of  the  Mediterranean  world  was  a  stoiy  of 
degeneration  and  decay. 

§  IV.    St.  Paul  and  Hellenism. 

In  contrast  to  the  artificial  system  which  modern  theory 
tries  to  impose  on  the  study  of  religion,  Paul  saw  the  natural 
and  true  principle  through  which  alone  religion  and  life  can 
develop  and  in  the  want  of  which  they  must  degenerate.  In 
the  process  of  history  you  obsei-ve  that,  in  the  few  nations 
an  1  periods  where  there  has  been  progiess  in  any  department 
of  life,  some  impulse  and  inner  power  has  been  at  work, 
some  strong  desire  which  incites  the  mind,  forms  the  character 
an  1  directs  the  activity  of  the  nation  or  of  a  sufficient  number 
of  leading  men  in  the  nation.  Paul  generalised  this  principle. 
He  saw  that  the  intense  desire  for  truth  and  reality  is  the 
fundamental  fact  in  life,  and  that  reality  is  God;  and  he 


IV.   S^.  Paul  and  Hellenism  31 

found  in  Christ  the  power  that  can  rouse  this  desire  and  make 
it  live  among  men  permanently,  instead  of  appearing  sporadi- 
cally on  rare  occasions  and  for  a  brief  period. 

The  view  of  life  taken  by  a  practical  nature  like  Paul's  is 
determined  by  and  suited  to  the  age  and  the  surrounding 
facts ;  and,  in  order  to  understand  him  rightly,  we  must 
recognise  how  his  thought  had  grown  out  of  Hellenism, 
how  it  was  related  to  Judaism,  and  how  it  sought  to  direct 
the  Roman  Imperial  system.  But  we  must  remember  that 
the  idea  of  growth  and  development  conditions  his  view  and 
gives  form  to  all  his  thought ;  and  unless  we  appreciate  this, 
we  shall  never  comprehend  the  effect  which  his  teaching  had 
on  the  world. 

The  Hellenism  with  which  Paul  came  in  contact  had 
greatly  changed  from  the  Hellenism  of  the  classical  period. 
It  had  lost  that  delicate  grace  which  makes  it  unique  in  the 
world's  history,  but  which  was  fragile,  evanescent  and  irre- 
coverable, belonging  to  a  certain  peculiar  collocation  of 
racial  and  historic  conditions,  and  unable  to  survive  when 
those  conditions  changed.  But  it  had  become  hardier,  more 
practical,  more  common-place,  and  more  capable  of  influenc- 
ing the  world.  The  grace  of  the  older  Hellenism  as  it 
arose  under  rare  conditions,  has  always  been  a  power  that 
affected  only  the  few.  The  later  Hellenism  had  adapted 
itself  to  the  world  in  general. 

Since  the  time  of  Aristotle,  Hellenism  had  been  essaying 
a  new  and  stupendous  task,  which  was  forced  on  it  in  the 
development  of  Mediterranean  history.  Greece  had  gone 
forth  to  conquer  the  East :  Greek  education  and  ideals  were 
attempting  to  establish  themselves  in  Western  Asia.  The 
attempt  was  successful  in  a  remarkable  degree,  because 
Hellenism  adapted  itself  to  the  new  problems  which  it  had 


32      I.   Paulinism  in  the  Gi'csco-Ronian   Woidd 

to  solve :  it  did  not  seek  to  impose  itself  in  rigid  purity  on  its 
Asiatic  subjects,  but  profoundly  modified  itself  in  the  school 
of  practical  life.  With  the  armies  of  Alexander,  Seleucus, 
and  Ptolemy  marched  also  the  philosophy  and  the  literature 
and  the  art  of  Hellenism.  It  was  merely  one  symptom  of  a 
wider  impulse  that  Alexander  carried  everywhere  with  him 
the  poems  of  Homer.  Perhaps  it  was  only  a  pseudo-historic 
fancy  of  later  time  which  invented  the  story  that  a  bronze 
statuct'  1  of  Hercules  by  Lysippus  accompanied  all  his 
marches,  adorned  his  dinner-table,  and  was  affected  with 
emotion  at  his  death;  but  the  tale  embodies  the  historic 
truth  that  those  marches  made  Greek  art  a  factor  in  the  de- 
velopment of  human  life  as  far  East  as  the  Indus  and  the 
city  of  Bactra. 

Greek  philosophy,  hitherto  circumscribed  in  its  ideals,  tried 
to  embrace  within  its  scope  the  wider  problems  of  a  larger 
world-life ;  but  the  attempt  could  not  be  successful  at  the  first 
essay.  Neither  Epicureanism  nor  Stoicism — the  one  too 
Greek  the  other  too  Asiatic  in  its  tone,  but  neither  of  them 
touching  the  finest  chords  of  the  Hellenic  or  the  Oriental 
mind — attained  a  level  higher  than  mere  abstract  philoso- 
phising. Human  thought  cannot  lead  human  life  ;  it  must 
ever  lag  behind  practice,  and  gather  power  and  truth  from 
the  world  of  real  work  and  the  practical  solution  of  real 
problems.  None  of  those  earlier  attempts  at  a  fusion  of 
Greek  and  Oriental  thought  had  any  grasp  of  the  principle 
of  development,  of  which  Aristotle  in  his  most  advanced 
stage  had  caught  more  than  a  glimpse.  Except  through 
this  principle  it  was  impossible  to  unite  Greek  and  Oriental 
thought.  It  was  equally  impossible  in  practical  life  simply 
to  amalgamate  European  and  Asiatic  society  as  they  were : 
the  two  had  to  grow  together  into  a  new  organisation. 


IV.   Si.  Paul  mid  Hellenism  33 

Paul  is  penetrated  from  first  to  last  with  this  idea.  He 
looks  at  everything  as  in  a  process  of  growth,  not  as  a  hard 
stationary  given  fact.  The  true  life  is  a  making  towards 
perfection  through  growth,  culminating  in  fruit.  How  fre- 
quently there  appears  in  his  letters  this  thought  of  producing 
fruit,  a  development  leading  towards  an  issue  in  riches  and 
usefuhiess.  The  good  seems  never  to  occur  to  his  mind  as  a 
mere  quality,  but  as  a  law  of  progress.  Even  where  this 
thought  is  not  explicitly  brought  out  in  the  words,  the 
analogy  of  other  places  may  usually  be  taken  as  sufficient 
proof  that,  when  he  is  speaking  of  riches,  he  thinks  of  it  as 
the  issue  of  a  process  of  growth  :  so,  for  example,  Phil.  i.  1 1, 
"  filled  with  the  fruit  of  rightecjusness,"  Phil,  i,  22,  "  to  live 
is  Christ  and  to  die  is  gain,"  must  both  be  understood  as  ex- 
pressions of  the  gradual  consummation  of  a  process  of  living, 
i.e.,  of  striving  towards  an  end.  Phil,  iv,  17,  "  I  seek  for  the 
fruit  that  increaseth  to  your  account,"  gives  the  picture  of 
the  accounts  carefully  kept  in  a  day-book  of  the  results 
coming  in  day  by  day  and  steadily  increasing  as  time  passes 
and  the  growth  of  character  and  power  proceeds.  His  whole 
philosophy  rests  on  this  idea  of  growth  and  development. 
The  world  is  always  to  him  fluid  and  changing,  never 
stationary.  But  the  change  is  towards  an  end,  not  mere  flux 
without  law :  it  is  either  degeneration  towards  death  or  in- 
crease towards  perfection  and  true  life;  it  is  the  purpose  of 
God  working  itself  out  in  the  affairs  of  men,  a  truly  Greek 
idea  which  can  be  traced  in  the  highest  expression  of  its 
literature,  beginning  from  Homer,  who  sums  up  the  whole 
drama  of  the  Iliad  as  the  consummation  of  the  purpose  of 
Zeus  {Alo^:  ireXeUro  ^ovXi),  I,  4).  After  Aristotle  Greek 
philosophy  ceased  to  have  any  firm  grasp  of  this  idea, 
till  it  reappears  as  the  determining  form  of  Paul's  whole 

3 


34      !•   Paulinism  in  the  Grceco-Roman   World 

thought.  Moral  excellence  is  to  him  not  a  mere  quality; 
it  is  a  purpose  to  be  attained,  an  end  to  be  reached,  a 
prize  to  be  won  by  a  course. 

This  character  in  the  Pauline  thought  was  what  first  struck 
me,  as  was  mentioned  already,  during  my  last  studies  as  an 
undergraduate  in  this  University.  It  seems  to  me  wholly 
inconceivable  in  a  mere  narrow  Hebrew,  and  wholly  inex- 
plicable without  an  education  in  Greek  philosophy.  We 
find  some  indication  of  it  in  the  few  scraps  of  Athenodorus 
the  Tarsian,  which  have  been  preseived  by  Seneca,  such  as 
"  know  that  you  are  free  from  passions  only  when  you  have 
reached  the  point  that  you  ask  Goi  for  nothing  except  what 
you  can  ask  openly".  Here  true  freedom  of  mind  is  con- 
ceived as  an  end  to  be  attained,  not  as  a  quality  naturally 
belonging  to  the  mind  in  the  beginning ;  and  another  passage 
of  considerable  length  quoted  by  Seneca  shows  distinctly 
that  conception  of  life  as  a  warfare  and  a  struggle,  which 
both  Paul  and  Seneca  express  in  remarkably  similar  terms. 

Now,  as  was  stated  at  the  outset,  it  is  not  my  purpose  to 
discuss  the  relation  between  the  philosophy  of  the  Greeks 
and  the  philosophy  which  may  be  traced  as  the  basis  of 
Paulinism,  a  task  for  which  the  power  and  the  inclination  are 
lacking.  The  aim  of  these  lectures  is  to  examine  how  the 
practical  service  in  the  development  of  mankind  which 
Hellenism  performed  for  the  world,  was  taken  up  as  an 
element  in  the  Pauline  reorganisation  of  society. 

Hellenism  has  led  the  way  of  civilisation  in  many  things  ; 
but  for  the  well-being  of  society  there  are  two  pre-eminent 
services  which  it  has  rendered  to  the  world,  and  in  which  it 
stands  almost  alone:  it  showed  how  the  freedom  of  the 
individual  should  be  consistent  with  an  ordered  and  articu- 
lated government,  and  it  organised  a  system  of  State  edu- 


IV.   SL  Pmd  and  Hellenism  35 


canon.     The  relation  in  which  Paul  stands  to  both  of  these 
Hellenic  ideals  demands  consideration. 

That  the  unfettered  development  of  the  individual  was  the 
aim  of  Hellenism,  and  that  the  cities  in  which  the  Hellenic 
ideal  was  best  realised  were  those  in  which  freest  play  was 
given  to  the  individual  to  live  his  own  life  according  to  his 
own  judgment,  needs  merely  to  be  stated  ;  it  is  a  matter  of 
universal  agreement.  There  you  have  at  once  the  strength 
and  the  weakness  of  Hellenism  in  the  practical  world  of 
government.  No  other  ancient  people  aimed  so  steadfastly 
as  the  Greeks  at  freedom  as  the  greatest  good  in  life,  and 
while  it  must  be  confessed  that  the  order  and  even  the  safety 
of  the  State  were  sometimes  jeopardised  in  the  pursuit  of 
individual  freedom,  and  the  freedom  tended  to  degenerate 
into  licence  and  caprice,  yet  there  was  a  certain  atmosphere 
of  liberty  in  a  Greek  city  which  is  invigorating  to  breathe 
even  in  the  pages  of  history,  and  which  seems  to  have  lasted 
even  in  remote  lands  and  alien  surroundings  so  long  as  any 
shadow  of  Hellenic  society  remained.  We  may  state  a 
single  example,  instructive  yet  too  little  noticed. 

The  contrast  between  the  easy  freedom  of  a  Gra^co- 
Italian  city  and  the  rule  of  the  strict  and  paternal  government 
of  a  Roman  city  was  still  apparent  in  95  A.D.  This  we  learn 
from  Statius,  a  poet  not  of  the  highest  class,  yet  possessed 
of  a  real  affinity  for  and  an  intense  love  of  the  beautiful, 
alike  in  external  nature,  in  art,  and  in  human  character  :  he 
therefore  saw  what  was  best  in  contemporary  Italian  life,  and 
we  o-et  from  him  a  far  more  favourable  as  well  as  a  far  truer 
idea  of  that  life,  than  from  Juvenal,  a  disappointed  man,  or 
from  Martial  with  his  fondness  for  all  that  is  ugly.  The 
picture  which  Statius  paints  of  Neapolis  throws  a  light  on 
the  character  of  real  Italian  society,  which  we  could  never 


36      I.   Paulinism  in  the  Gi^cBco-Roman   World 

get  from  those  two  contemporary  poets.  We  gather  from 
it  that  a  Greek-Italian  town  like  Neapolis  stood  in  much  the 
same  contrast  with  Roman  system,  as  the  free  life,  the  almost 
capricious  liberty  and  licence,  in  an  English  city  shows  to 
life  in  a  German  town,  admirably  ordered  but  bound  by 
painfully  strict  rules.  He  praises  in  Neapolis  the  freedom 
of  thought  and  word  such  as  one  find§  in  the  dramatic  poetry 
of  Menander,  a  freedom  in  which  Grecian  licence  mingles 
with  and  is  toned  by  the  strict  principle  of  Rome :  in 
Neapolis  order  reigned  without  virulence  or  wrangling  in  the 
lav/-courts,  and  the  people  found  their  law  in  their  own 
character  and  practised  equity  without  the  compulsion  of 
magistrates  like  those  of  Rome. 

It  is  especially  in  writing  to  a  group  of  Galatian  cities 
that  Paul  insists  on  the  idea  of  freedom.  He  urges  them  to 
stand  fast  in  the  freedom  with  which  Christ  set  them  free, 
and  not  be  entangled  again  in  a  yoke  of  bondage.  He  re- 
minds them  that  they  were  called  for  freedom.  He  uses 
the  words  " free,"  " freedom,"  "set  free,"  eleven  times  in 
this  short  Epistle  of  six  chapters.  He  has  those  three  words 
only 

7  times  in  Romans,  with    16  chapters 

8  „     ,,  Corinthians,  „      29        „ 
2       „     „  the  other  letters,      „     43        „ 

While  this  indicates  that  there  was  some  special  need  for 
insisting  on  this  idea  in  writing  to  the  Galatians  and  that 
freedom  of  spirit  was  an  element  which  much  required  to  be 
fostered  in  their  character,  it  also  shows  that  the  idea  was 
an  essential  and  fundamental  part  of  the  social  order  as 
Paul  understood  it.  The  four  South  Galatian  cities  were 
more  Asiatic,  less  moved  by  long  familiarity  with  freedom  of 
life  and  thought.     In  the  case  of  the  Romans  Paul  insists 


IV.    Sf.   Paul  and  Hellenism  ^"j 

less  on  this  idea ;  Roman  liberty  was  old  in  Rome ;  and  in 
writing  to  Greek  cities  of  the  Aegean  lands,  where  liberty 
had  been  only  too  apt  to  degenerate  into  licence,  it  was 
more  needful  to  insist  on  the  importance  of  order,  self- 
restraint,  contentment,  abnegation,  than  of  freedom.  So, 
even  where  Paul  treats  what  is  fundamentally  the  same 
topic,  it  is  noteworthy  that  he  does  it  with  a  different  sug- 
gestion according  to  the  character  and  past  experience  of 
his  correspondents. 

But,  it  may  be  said,  the  freedom  on  which  Paul  insists  as 
a  fundamental  part  of  the  Christian  life,  is  only  freedom 
from  Jewish  ritual ;  not  freedom  generally  in  political  and 
social  and  philosophical  relations.  The  reply  is  that  freedom 
in  one  direction  tends  to  produce  freedom  of  mind  in  general, 
as  human  nature  will  have  it ;  and  moreover  I  would  go  so 
far  as  to  maintain  that  Paul  was  conscious  of  the  wider  idea, 
even  while  in  the  first  instance  he  is  talking  of  its  special 
application  to  the  immediately  pressing  side  of  the  case. 
The  illustrations,  the  reiteration  of  the  contrast  between 
freedom  and  slavery,  in  the  Galatian  letter,  show  that  the 
wider  application  could  not  be  absent  from  the  mind  of 
either  the  writer  or  the  readers.  It  is  difficult  and  dangerous 
to  narrow  an  idea  in  the  interpretation  of  a  great  thinker 
and  statesman,  just  as  it  is  difficult  and  dangerous  to  narrow 
it  in  practical  life,  for  a  people  which  is  educated  to  freedom 
in  one  direction  will  widen  it  all  round.  No  man  can  set 
bounds  to  the  growth  and  generalisation  of  a  fruitful  idea  in 
the  practical  life  of  the  world  ;  every  autocrat  has  found  it  so, 
except  if  he  succeed  in  a  universal  massacre,  and  if  he  leaves 
only  one  survivor,  it  may  be  fatal  to  his  intentions.  And 
so  likewise  in  the  thought  and  words  of  Paul,  there  is  no 
fallacy  of  interpretation  more  dangerous  than  to  maintain 


38      I.   Paulinism  in  the  GrcEco- Roman   World 

that  he  was  thinking  only  of  some  narrow  religious  question 
or  controversy,  and  had  no  conception  of  the  wider  applica- 
tion in  the  range  of  life  which  his  words  and  thought  ad- 
mitted. Yet  there  is  no  fallacy  more  common  than  this 
among  modern  scholars,  owing  to  their  caution  (in  many 
respects  a  healthy  caution)  against  reading  into  Paul's  words 
more  than  was  clearly  and  certainly  meant  by  them.  But 
it  must  be  remembered  that  Christianity  was  not  a  philo- 
sophic theory,  where  one  must  be  so  strict  in  interpretation, 
but  a  power  in  the  life  of  the  world  ;  that  it  must  grow  and 
widen  by  the  law  of  its  being  ;  and  that  a  firm  grasp  of  this 
law  of  growth  is  the  determining  and  characteristic  fact  in 
the  thought  of  Paul.  Here  we  can  appeal  to  subsequent 
history.  Where  Pauline  ideas  have  been  strongly  operative, 
there  freedom  in  thought  and  life  has  been  most  conspicuous. 
Where  you  have  a  people  enslaved  by  ecclesiasticism  or 
obedient  and  devoted  to  autocracy,  there  Paul  is  a  mere 
empty  name,  a  mere  Saint  who  is  revered  without  any 
attempt  to  understand  him. 

Moreover  we  can  trace  this  Pauline  idea  back  to  its  origin 
in  the  teaching  of  Christ.  No  Saying  of  Christ's  has  been 
more  frequently  quoted  than  thfit  which  is  preserved  by 
Matthev/  alone,  xi.  28-30,  where  the  easy  yoke  and  light 
burden,  which  Christ  imposes  on  men,  are  contrasted  with 
the  heavy  burden  which  others  lay  on  them.  This  is  the 
contrast  between  freedom  and  slavery.  Man  cannot  escape 
the  burden  ;  he  must  be  restricted  and  tied  down  in  a  certain 
degree;  but  the  bonds  and  the  weight  which  Christianity 
imposes  leave  the  bearer  really  free. 

That  this  Saying  of  Christ's  was  familiar  to  Paul  is 
proved  by  the  frequency  with  which  he  brings  together  two 
words  which  are  specially  characteristic  of  it     The  words 


IV.   SL  Paul  and  Hellenism  39 

are  "  meek  "  and  "  lowly  "  :  and  they  are  brought  together  in 
Ephesians  iv.  i,  2,  Colossians  iii.  12,  2  Corinthians  x.  i  : 
sometimes  the  adjectives,  sometimes  the  nouns  are  used,  for 
Paul  does  not  quote  the  exact  words,  but  the  thought  lies  in 
his  mind,  and  moulds  his  expression.  Take  for  example  the 
last  case :  "  I  entreat  you  by  the  meekness  and  gentleness  of 
Christ,  I  who  in  your  presence  am  lowly  among  you".  One 
cannot  escape  the  inference  that  the  force  of  this  appeal 
depends  on  the  readers'  knowledge  that  meekness  and  lowli- 
ness were  of  the  character  of  Christ,  in  other  words  on  their 
knowledge  of  the  Saying.  Paul  had  been  blamed  by  them 
as  poor-spirited  :  he  reminds  them  that,  as  Christ  was  meek, 
so  he  himself  is  lowly.  The  passage  is  forcible  only  to  those 
who  knew  that  Christ  had  called  himself  meek  and  lowly. 

This  Saying  guided  the  expression  of  those  who  cham- 
pioned the  cause  of  freedom  against  the  Judaising  party  in 
the  early  Church.  Peter  protested  against  putting  a  yoke 
upon  the  neck  of  the  disciples,  which  they  themselves  could 
not  bear  ;  and  the  Council  in  Jerusalem  resolved  to  lay  upon 
them  no  greater  burden  than  these  necessary  things.  The 
emphatic  words  are  always  caught  from  the  Saying,  which 
thus  leads  up  through  the  Council  and  its  Decree  to  the 
Galatian  Epistle.  I'aul.  as  he  encouraged  and  urged  the 
Galatians  on  to  freedom,  was  consciously  working  out  the 
appeal  and  the  encouragement  which  Christ  made  in  that 
Saying,  Matthew  xi.  28-30. 

A  different  fate  has  befallen  those  words  of  Christ  from 
the  words  of  Paul.  The  former  have  been  generally  taken 
in  the  universal  sense,  as  referring  to  all  the  burdens  and 
troubles  of  life,  whereas  Paul's  freedom  has  been  construed 
too  narrowly  as  meaning  only  freedom  from  the  hard  and 
fast  rul^s  of  the  Jewish  Law.     But  the  truth  is  that  both 


40      I.   Paulinism  in  the  Grcrco-Roman   World 

sayings  have  the  double  application,  in  the  first  instance  to 
the  burden  and  yoke  of  the  Law  and  the  freedom  therefrom, 
in  the  second  instance  to  the  general  idea  of  all  burdens  and 
trials  and  of  wider  freedom  of  life  and  thought.  Christ  stated 
as  explicitly  as  Peter  or  James  or  Paul,  that  the  Pharisees' 
rules  bound  upon  men  burdens  heavier  than  they  could  bear. 
Christ  and  Paul  alike  generalised  the  thought  into  a  universal 
principle  of  freedom  and  ease.  It  is  because  the  Saying  of 
Jesus  is  so  patently  and  undeniably  universal,  and  because 
it  was  evidently  so  much  in  Paul's  mind,  that  we  have  the 
assurance  and  proof  that  he  too  took  this  contrast  of  bondage 
and  freedom  (which  is  the  leading  thought  in  the  letter  to 
the  Galatians)  in  the  wider  as  well  as  in  the  narrower  sense. 

We  are  therefore  justified  in  maintaining  that  Paul  felt  a 
strong  sympathy  with  the  freedom  of  life  and  thought  which 
marked  the  Greek  society,  and  amid  which  he  had  grown  up 
in  Tarsus — which  no  one  that  has  ever  experienced  it  can 
willingly  abandon  ;  and  we  are  justified  in  asserting  that  the 
freedom  which  he  champions  in  the  letter  to  the  Galatians 
was  the  freedom  which  the  world  owes  to  the  Greek  civilisa- 
tion, a  freedom,  however,  "in  which  Grecian  license  mingles 
with  and  is  toned  by  Christian  principle,"  if  I  may  quote 
with  one  modification  the  description  given  by  Statins. 

In  the  second  place  Hellenic  civilisation  had  formed  a 
system  of  public  education  in  an  unsurpassed  and  almost 
unequalled  way.  The  weakness  of  the  Roman  State  was 
that  it  neglected  education.  The  Jews  developed  a  system 
of  home  education,  in  which  certain  religious  and  family  and 
national  influences  were  impressed  on  the  child  in  a  marvel- 
lous fashion,  so  that  they  permanently  moulded  his  character : 
and  the  supreme  influence  was  exercised  by  the  festival,  at 
once  a  national  and  a  family  celebration,  of  the  Passover, 


IV.   SL  Paul  and  Hellenism  41 

and  the  teaching  about  its  meaning  and  origin  which  the 
head  of  each  house  on  that  annual  occasion  imparted  to  all 
members  of  the  household.  But  Hellenism  evolved  a  national 
and  public  education,  intellectual  and  physical,  of  remarkable 
character;  and  it  was  in  later  times  and  in  the  Graico-Asiatic 
cities  that  this  system  can  be  observed  in  greatest  perfection. 
Tl  ere  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  vitality  of  those  cities  de- 
pended on  their  careful  attention  to  public  education.  The 
character  and  details  of  the  system  belong  still  to  the  domain 
of  the  archaeologist,  for  they  are  only  being  slowly  recovered 
from  the  ruins  of  the  Graeco-Asiatic  cities.  The  general 
principle  is  clear  and  certain. 

The  question  is,  what  position  Paul  took  up  on  this  point. 
Did  he  regard  education  as  a  necessary  element  in  a  properly 
arranged  society  ?  Did  he  aim  at  making  an  educated,  or 
was  he  satisfied  with  an  uneducated,  Church  ? 

The  answer  follows  at  once  from  his  ideal  of  freedom. 
Freedom  is  the  growth  of  education  :  it  does  not  really  exist 
for  the  uneducated  man,  who  cannot  emerge  from  a  state  of 
servitude.  Now  true  Christianity  demands  an  educated 
people.  It  is  the  religion  of  educated  minds,  and  it  can 
never  appeal  to  a  rude  barbarian  race  with  that  marvellous 
effect  of  instantaneously  elevating  and  ennobling  them  to  a 
certain  degree,  which  Mohammedanism  has  often  been  able 
to  attain.  The  pure,  simple,  stem,  definite  law  conveyed  in 
the  Mohammedan  faith  can  seize  the  mind  of  an  ignorant 
and  barbarous  race.  Christianity  seems  to  miss  it,  except 
in  so  far  as  it  begins  by  educating  it. 

Above  all,  that  is  true  of  the  Pauline  teaching.  Its  very 
essence  lies  in  education.  To  say  that  is  simply  to  repeat 
in  another  way  what  has  been  already  said  about  Paul's 
insistence  on  the  fundamental  truth  that  the  higher  life  is  a 


42      I.   Paulinism  in  the  Grceco-Roman   World 

growth,  a  development,  a  process  of  attaining  to  an  end 
desired  and  struggled  for.  This  growth  is  the  education  Oi 
the  intellect  and  the  character.  The  sarcasm  that  Paul 
pours  forth  on  the  Sophia,  the  philosophy,  of  the  wise 
Corinthians,  and  the  contrast  that  he  points  between  their 
philosophic  subtlety  and  the  simplicity  of  true  religion,  have 
often  led  to  the  mistaken  view  that  he  disparaged  education 
and  preferred  an  uneducated  religion.  But  this  view  misses 
the  sarcasm  of  Paul's  Letters  to  the  Corinthians.  It  is  not 
education  that  he  hates,  but  false  and  abstract  education  ; 
for  no  person  speaks  so  harshly  about  bad  education  as 
the  educational  enthusiast  and  reformer.  What  he  really 
says  to  the  Corinthians  is  that  they  must  strip  themselves 
of  their  false  knowledge,  cease  to  pride  themselves  on  their 
spurious  wisdom,  recognise  their  own  ignorance,  before  they 
can  begin  to  acquire  true  education.  They  had  never  learned 
that  the  beginning  of  true  knowledge  lies  in  the  recognition 
of  one's  ignorance.^  The  work  of  a  true  educator  was  "  to  fit 
spiritual  words  to  spiritual  ideas,  to  speak  Sophia  among 
the  mature,  the  Sophia  of  God,  the  Divine  system  of  true 
philosophy,  the  deep-lying  scheme  in  which  the  intentions 
of  God  in  the  world  find  expression"  (i  Cor.  ii.  6  f ,  12  f.). 
In  writing  to  the  Corinthians  Paul  was  not  depreciating  the 
value  of  education,  but  warning  them  against  the  fault  to 
which  they  were  prone,  viz.,  philosophic  verbalism  and  jug- 
gling with  words. 

It  may  be  argued  that  Paul  refers  little  to  teachers  and 
the  organisation  of  teaching,  that  the  word  "teaching"  is 
not  a  characteristic  word  in  his  writings,  and  that  therefore, 
whatever  he  may  have  thought,  he  showed  no  care  for  the 
practical  realisation  of  his  ideas  about  education.  But  the 
formal  organisation  of  teaching  was  a  matter  of  practical 


V.  Hellenism  and  Hebraism  43 


detail,  which  lay  outside  the  scope  of  his  letters.  In  the 
Pastoral  Epistles,  where  he  approaches  nearest  to  the  subject 
of  the  practical  organisation  in  a  Christian  society,  the  word 
"  teaching  "  becomes  a  characteristic  term,  occurring  fifteen 
times  in  those  three  short  letters,  whereas  it  occurs  only  four 
times  in  all  the  rest  of  his  writings.  Moreover,  Paul  may 
well  have  been  alive  to  the  dan^^ers  to  which  all  schools  and 
systems  of  teaching,  lower  and  higher  alike,  are  exposed: 
on  the  one  hand  they  are  too  apt  to  become  formal,  stereo- 
typed, conservative,  lifeless ;  on  the  other  hand  Greek  edu- 
cation, in  an  even  greater  degree  than  English,  was  too 
literary  and  abstract,  too  i  emote  from  the  world  of  real  life. 

§  V.     Hellenism  and  Hebraism. 

In  the  mind  of  Paul  a  universalised  Hellenism  coalesced 
with  a  universalised  Hebraism.  If  the  Hebrew  and  the 
Hellenic  ideals  are  both  widened  to  embrace  the  whole 
human  race,  they  must  either  be  able  to  coalesce  or  the  one 
must  destroy  the  other  :  there  is  no  third  alternative. 

That  the  thought  of  Paul  was  intensely  and  thoroughly 
Hebrew  is,  of  course,  a  fixed  beginning  to  start  from  ;  this 
needs  no  argument,  for  it  rests  on  the  practically  universal 
agreement  of  scholars.  Yet  there  exists  a  widespread  opinion 
that  the  Hebrew  side  of  Paul's  mind  is  the  whole,  and  that 
you  can  comprehend  his  aims  and  thoughts  fully  by  ap- 
proaching him  solely  from  the  Hebrew  side;  and  on  account 
of  that  strong  opinion,  expressed  emphatically  for  example 
by  Professor  Harnack  often  in  quite  recent  writings,  many 
regard  it  as  mere  presumption  to  state  a  different  view. 
But  I  cannot  understand  Paul  as  purely  a  Hebrew  :  his  words 
and  his  life  present  on  that  supposition  an  insoluble  enigma, 
and  the  course  of  history  remains  equally  unintelligible. 


44      I-  Paulinism  in  the  Grceco- Roman   World 

I  am  assuming  the  possibility  of  combining  in  one  mind 
the  aims  and  ideals  of  the  East  and  the  West.  Here  again 
I  find  myself  in  opposition  to  a  fashionable  opinion.  There 
is  a  tendency  in  modern  times,  especially  in  this  country,  to 
consider  that  the  Oriental  and  the  European  mind  are 
absolutely  contrary  to  each  other,  and  to  regard  it  as  an 
impossibility  that  Asiatic  and  European  should  mix  in  a 
stable  and  contented  common  society.  "  Oil  and  Water"  is 
the  proverb  that  every  superficial  observer  will  quote.  This 
opinion  is  mainly  of  modern  manufacture.  The  truth  that 
underlies  it,  and  which  some  more  accurate  speakers  state 
plainly,  is  that  you  cannot  by  pure  compulsion  and  domina- 
tion make  Orientals  into  Europeans,  any  more  than  you  can 
make  Europeans  into  Orientals.  The  West  cannot  simply 
rule  over  the  East,  or  the  East  over  the  West.  The  govern- 
ing power  must  be  above  both ;  and  each  must  approximate 
to  and  adapt  itself  to  the  other  by  learning  from  the  other. 

The  most  marked  and  dangerous  symptom  of  degeneration 
in  modern  civilisation  is  the  strengthening  of  racial  antipathy, 
which  now  exists  to  an  extent  that  was  formerly  unknown. 
In  ancient  history  that  deep-seated  racial  hatred  plays  little 
part ;  the  enmity  of  Greek  and  Jew  is  the  worst  example  of 
it,  and  this  was  never  carried  to  anything  like  the  extreme 
that  ihe.  Jtidenhctze  has  attained  in  mediaeval  and  in  modern 
Europe.  But  race-hatred  and  colour-hatred  are  under  present 
conditions  forming  barriers  far  more  impassable  than  ever 
existed  in  ancient  times ;  and  the  so-called  irreconcilability 
of  Asiatic  and  European  is  one  of  those  artificial  modern 
products. 

The  war  between  civilisation  and  barbarism,  the  battle 
between  the  Gods  and  the  Giants  (to  use  the  Greek  mytho- 
logical expression  of  the  thought),  is  always  going  on :  it  can 


V.   Hellenism  and  Hebraism  45 


never  reach  an  end.  The  opposition  reappears  in  new 
forms,  as  soon  as  the  old  forms  are  decided ;  and  this  ex- 
aggeration of  racial  pride  and  intensification  of  racial  hatred 
is  one  of  the  modern  forms  which  barbarism  has  assumed  in 
its  war  against  civilisation  and  progress.  You  see  it  in  the 
railway  station  at  Buda-Pesth,  where  in  a  great  international 
halting-place  there  is  no  inscription  permitted  in  any 
language  exxept  Magyar.  You  see  it  in  the  entrance  hall 
of  an  American  hotel,  where  the  clerk  refuses  admission  to 
a  well-educated  and  well-dressed  man  because  a  tinge  of 
blue  in  the  finger-nails  betrays  a  slight  intermixture  several 
generations  back  of  negro  blood.  You  see  it  on  a  great 
scale  in  India,  where  the  lesson  has  not  been  learned,  or 
has  been  learned  to  the  wrong  issue,  that  permanent  rule 
of  one  race  over  another  must  fail  unless  they  can  to  some 
degree  approximate  and  unite. 

The  Roman  Provinces  in  the  Asiatic  continent  furnish  one 
example  on  a  great  scale  to  prove  that  the  modern  view  is  a 
fallacy.  In  the  great  Hellenistic  cities  of  Asia  the  union  of 
Asiatic  and  European  in  an  orderly  and  well-balanced  society 
was  accomplished,  first  by  the  wise  policy  of  the  Greek 
kings  and  afterwards  by  the  Roman  rule.  A  high  level  of 
adaptive  and  inventive  capacity  characterised  those  great 
Graeco-Asiatic  cities,  and  among  their  mixed  population 
many  excellent  devices  for  the  better  ordering  of  society 
originated  in  the  Hellenistic  age.  The  narrow  limits  within 
which  the  old  and  purely  Greek  ideal  of  a  City-State  was 
confined  had  made  it  hard,  and  it  would  have  remained 
isolated  and  barren,  unless  it  had  been  worked  out  on  a 
broader  stage  in  the  Gra^co-Asiatic  cities.  Under  the  com- 
pelling power  of  necessity  amid  the  intercourse  of  East 
and  West,  development  began  in  the  realm  of  fact  and  life. 


46      I.   Paulinism  in  the  Greeco- Roman   World 

It  has  never  been  sufficiently  noticed  how  much  of  improved 
Roman  method  (and  even  of  modern  method)  in  administra- 
tion was  taken  directly  by  the  Imperial  government  from 
Hellenistic  models.  A  rational  chronology,  based  on  a 
national  not  merely  a  municipal  principle,  is,  so  far  as  I  know, 
first  traceable  in  Asia  Minor  and  Syria  ;  and  it  is  one  of  those 
simple  matters  of  everyday  usage,  whose  familiarity  blinds 
us  to  its  immense  importance.  Even  alone  such  a  creation 
of  good  method  is  an  inestimable  service  to  mankind ;  but 
such  a  creation  never  stands  alone.  The  practical  sense 
which  does  this  does  many  other  things.  The  Imperial 
system  of  tax-collection,  the  substitution  of  which  for  the 
old  Republican  system  of  farming  by  the  great  financial 
magnates  and  corporations  was  one  of  the  greatest  benefits 
that  the  Empire  conferred  on  the  Roman  world,  was  simply 
taken  over  from  the  Hellenistic  states  in  the  Eastern  Pro- 
vinces. Numerous  devices  of  the  Roman  commercial  law 
as  developed  by  the  praetors  were  borrowed  from  Hellenistic 
practice  with  very  slight  modifications  (which  were  not 
always  improvements),  e.g.,  in  respect  of  wills,  contracts,  etc. 
— a  fact  of  which  some  recent  writers  on  the  Epistle  to  the 
Galatians  and  its  legal  aspect  continue  to  remain  ignorant. 

But  far  the  most  important  fact  of  all  was  that  in  the 
mixed  Hellenistic  Empires,  and  especially  in  the  Seleucid 
Empire,  the  wider  idea  of  a  nation  and  of  national  patriotism 
was  beginning  under  the  compulsion  of  necessity  to  replace 
the  narrower  Greek  idea  of  the  City-State  and  of  a  purely 
municipal  patriotism.  The  wider  idea  was  still  faint  and 
weak,  but  its  germ  was  growing,  destined  to  be  taken  up  and 
fostered  by  the  stronger  and  better  amalgamated  Empire 
of  Rome.  Philosophy  followed  hard  on  the  heels  of  fact. 
Greek  thought,  and  especially  the  Stoic  philosophy,  was  not 


V.   Hellenism  and  Hebraism  47 


insensible  to  this  wider  and  nobler  idea  of  a  unity  and  brother- 
hood that  transcended  the  limits  of  a  city  or  a  tribe  ;  but 
the  conception  of  universal  brotherhood  remained  as  yet  an 
abstract  and  ineffective  thought,  devoid  of  driving  power  to 
move  the  world. 

The  Judaic  conception  was  equally  narrow  with  the  pure 
Hellenic  ideal,  equally  hard  and  barren  when  it  persisted  too 
long  in  its  isolation,  but  also  equally  capable  of  rich  growth. 
It  saw  one  people  of  God,  while  all  others  were  outcasts. 
The  Judaism  of  the  Diaspora  was  already  working  its  way 
practically  towards  demonstrating  the  irrationality  and  im- 
possibility of  that  narrow  principle.  Every  Jewish  family, 
which  possessed  the  right  of  citizenship  in  a  Greek  city  or 
the  higher  right  of  Roman  citizenship,  was  in  practice  deny- 
ing the  principle  to  which  its  members  still  clung  in  theory. 
The  teaching  of  Jesus  rose  high  above  such  a  narrow  idea. 
The  Apostles  by  slow  steps  were  moving  out  of  it ;  whether 
the  impulse  which  forced  them  on  would  have  been  sufificient 
to  raise  them  entirely  above  it  of  themselves  cannot  be  known, 
for  events  took  another  course.  The  greater  idea  seized  on 
Paul,  penetrated  and  ruled  his  whole  nature,  and  made  him 
on  a  sudden  able  to  see  the  whole  truth  and  compelled  him 
to  live  in  it.  He  perceived  in  a  flash  of  illumination  that  the 
universal  Hellenism  and  the  universalised  Jewish  right  of 
inheritance  to  God's  promise  and  grace,  must  be  co-exten- 
sive ;  that  each  was  the  complement  of  the  other.  He  made 
the  other  Apostles  see  this,  at  least  sooner  than  they  would 
themselves  have  understood  it.  The  barrier  was  broken 
once  for  all.  The  universalism  of  Christianity  completed  the 
transformation  of  Hellenism. 


48      I.  Paulinism  in  the  Grceco-Roman   World 

§  VI.  The  Empire  as  the  World's  Hope. 

As  has  been  pointed  out  in  §  III.,  the  opinion  which  was 
almost  universally  held  in  ancient  time,  alike  by  philosophers, 
by  poets,  and  by  society  in  general,  was  that  all  history  was 
a  progress  towards  decay,  a  degeneration  from  good  to  bad. 
In  the  view  of  both  Greeks  and  Romans  the  Golden  Age  of 
the  world  lay  in  the  beginning  of  history,  far  back  in  the 
remote  past ;  and  since  then  the  world  had  been  passing 
through  a  series  of  ages,  each  new  one  worse  than  the  pre- 
ceding. 

There  was  one  remarkable  exception  to  the  unanimity  of 
ancient  feeling.  There  existed  during  the  last  fifty  years 
before  Christ  a  disposition  to  regard  the  rise  of  the  Roman 
Imperial  system  as  the  inauguration  of  a  new  and  better  era 
in  the  history  of  the  world.  In  this  respect,  as  in  so  many 
others,  the  Empire  presented  itself  as  the  rival  of  Christianity, 
attempting  to  solve  the  same  social  problems  by  means 
which  were  superficially  similar,  however  unlike  they  were 
fundamentally. 

It  was  part  of  the  ancient  view  that  there  could  be  no 
remedy  for  the  evils  of  the  world  except  through  the  help  of 
Divine  power.  This  view  was  taken  both  in  the  Christian 
and  the  Imperial  hope  and  in  the  popular  despair.  As  Paul 
said,  so  also  those  heralds  of  the  Empire  maintained,  when 
things  are  at  their  worst  then  comes  the  divinely  sent  aid. 
The  hope  of  a  cure  through  the  new  Empire  was  bom  out 
of  the  most  desperate  straits  to  which  the  Mediterranean 
world  had  yet  been  reduced,  vis.^  the  Civil  Wars  and  the 
apparently  imminent  ruin  of  the  one  great  remaining  power 
of  order  in  the  civilised  world.  The  terrible  and  widespread 
suffering  entailed    by  the  Civil   Wars   proved,  just  as  the 


VI.    The  Empire  as  the   World's  Hope        49 

Pauline  view  declared  (§  II.),  the  birth-pangs  of  a  new  hope, 
which  appeared  in  the  form  of  a  deity  incarnate  in  human 
form  upon  the  earth :  on  this  god,  whether  he  was  named 
Mercury,  or  Apollo,  or  Jupiter,  rested  the  salvation  of  the 
Roman  world. 

This  Imperial  hope  was  undoubtedly  fostered  and  en- 
gineered as  a  political  device.  Poets  were  used  and  rewarded 
for  singing  it,  and  orators  were  encouraged  to  employ  it  in 
their  public  speeches.  But  it  was  more  than  a  device  of 
clever  party  manipulation.  It  had  a  natural  origin  and  a 
basis  in  human  nature  and  human  needs.  The  best  way  to 
understand  its  character  is  to  examine  carefully  the  poem  in 
which  it  first  appears,  the  famous  Fourth  Eclogue  of  Virgil, 
which  was  the  first  clear  and  articulate  expression  of  the 
hope.  This  poem  indubitably  exercised  considerable  influ- 
ence in  giving  form  and  definition  to  the  vague  emotion 
which  was  stirring  in  the  popular  mind  at  the  time  when 
the  Empire  was  in  preparation,  felt  by  many,  and  expressed 
by  one  great  writer. 

The  Fourth  Eclogue  had  its  origin  in  an  interesting 
episode  oi  literary  history  ;  and,  if  it  were  regarded  solely 
from  the  literary  point  of  view,  it  might  almost  be  called  an 
occasional  poem.  But  what  mic^ht  have  been  a  mere  oc- 
casim^^al  poem  in  the  hands  of  a  lesser  poet,  became  in  pass- 
ing through  the  mind  of  Virgil  a  work  of  far  wider  and 
hiL^hcr  character.  The  thought  must  have  been  simmering 
in  his  mind  for  a  considerable  time  before  it  was  expressed; 
though  the  form  was  suggested  by  an  occasion  in  literary 
intercourse.  It  is,  therefore,  essential  to  a  right  compre- 
hension of  this  Eclogue  that  it  should  be  studied  in  its  origin. 
Only  in  this  way  can  its  relation  to  the  popular  conceptions 
of  the  time  be  understood. 

4 


50      I.   Paulinisvi  in  the  Grcuco-Roman   World 

It  was  through  the  relations  between  Virgil  and  Horace^ 
so  friendly  and  for  the  latter  so  important,  that  this  poem 
of  Virgil's  took  its  actual  form.^°  Horace  was  an  officer, 
who  served  in  the  army  of  Brutus  and  Cassius,  and  took 
part  in  the  disastrous  battle  of  Philippi,  which  wrecked  the 
aristocratic  and  republican  party,  late  in  the  year  42  B.C. 
He  fled  from  the  rout  of  Philippi  and  returned  to  Italy,  where 
he  found  that  the  estate  at  Venusia  which  he  had  inherited 
from  his  father  had  been  confiscated  and  assigned  (like  many 
other  Italian  estates)  to  the  soldiers  of  the  victorious  armies. 
He  came  to  Rome,  where,  as  he  says, 

Bereft  of  property,  impaired  in  purse, 
Sheer  penury  drove  me  into  scribbling  verse. 

The  metropolis  was  the  only  place  which  at  that  time 
offered  a  career  to  a  young  man  conscious  of  literary  power, 
and  compelled  to  seek  a  living  thereby.  Horace  hao  nov» 
neither  property  nor  patron  nor  mfluential  friend.  As  an 
adherent  of  the  defeated  and  unpopular  party,  the  young 
poet's  career  was  doubly  difficult ;  and  we  could  not  suppose 
that  his  republican  and  aristocratic  sentiments  were  blazoned 
by  him  in  Rome  when  he  settled  there.  That  he  now  con- 
cealed his  political  feelings  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  he 
found  employment  as  a  clerk  in  one  of  the  government 
offices :  a  pronounced  aristocrat  would  not  have  received, 
and  would  hardly  have  asked,  such  a  position. 

Horace's  mind  was  not  that  of  a  zealot  or  an  extremist. 
He  had  fought  for  the  side  which  he  believed  in,  and  he 
accepted  the  result  of  the  fight.  The  question  for  him  was 
settled,  and  he  now  accommodated  himself  unreservedly 
to  the  new  situation.  Moreover,  he  had  unquestionably 
lost  his  faith  in  his  former  party,  from  causes  at  which 
the  historian  can  guess  without  any  difficulty.     He  recog- 


VI.    The  Empire  as  the   World's  Hope        51 

nised  that  it  was  incapable  and  dead,  and  that  Rome 
had  nothing  to  hope  from  it,  even  if  it  had  been  successful 
in  the  fight.  Every  reader  of  his  works  knows  that  such 
was  his  feeling,  and  such  was  the  widespread  feeling  of  the 
Roman  world.  Men  recognised  that  the  degeneration  of 
the  Mediterranean  world  had  proceeded  one  stage  further, 
and  that  the  Republic  had  failed  decisively  to  govern  the 
vast  Empire  which  it  had  conquered.  Horace  represents 
the  general  opinion  of  the  pagan  world.  He  stands  in  the 
world  of  men,  not  above  it  (as  Virgil  did) ;  he  expresses  its 
sentiments  from  a  sane,  common-sense  point  of  view  ;  and, 
as  he  emerged  from  penury,  he  attained  a  high  level  of 
wisdom,  propriety  and  self-respect  in  his  outlook  on  the 
world,  and  a  singularly  easy  and  graceful  yet  dignified 
expression  of  popular  philosophy  and  worldly  experience. 
From  him  we  gather  the  best  side  of  popular  sentiment 
and  popular  philosophy,  as  they  were  trained  in  the  stem 
school  of  life. 

In  one  of  Horace's  poems  the  popular  estimate  of  the 
situation  in  which  the  Roman  world  was  placed  found  full 
expression.  This  poem  is  the  Sixteenth  Epode,  which 
stands  at  the  end  of  the  first  period  of  his  literary  activity, 
and  prepares  the  entrance  on  his  second  period.  In  the 
first  period  he  was  the  hungry  wolf,  the  impoverished  and 
disappointed  writer,  who  had  felt  the  injustice  of  the  world 
and  was  embittered  by  his  experience.  In  the  Si.xteenth 
Epode  he  pours  forth  unreservedly  the  disappointment, 
which  he  and  the  people  generally  felt  about  the  existing 
situation  of  the  Roman  world.  The  long  civil  wars  had 
sickened  and  disgusted  the  popular  mind,  except  in  so  far 
as  they  had  brutalised  it  into  positive  enjoyment  of  the 
apparently  endless  series  of  intestine  wars  and  massacres, 


52      I.   Paulimsm  in  the  Grceco-Roman   World 

each  more  bloody  than  its  predecessor.  The  Roman  Empire 
and  Roman  society  were  drifting  steadily  towards  ruin,  and 
their  motion  onwards  towards  the  abyss  was  becoming  ever 
more  rapid. 

This  consciousness  of  degeneration  and  approaching  ruin 
generally  turned  to  utter  despair.     No  hope  was  apparent. 
The  Roman  people  had  outgrown  its  old  religion,  and  had 
found  no  new  religion  to  take  its  place.     Hence  there  was 
no  religious  consolation  for  it,  no  God  to  whom  it  could  look 
for  help  and  salvation.     To  which  of  the  deities  should  the 
Roman  people  turn :  what  prayer  would  avail  to  importune 
Vesta  and  the  old  Divine  patrons  of  the  State  and  compel 
them  to  help  the  city  and  the  Empire  in  their  need  ?     So 
asks  Horace  in  the  second  Ode  of  the  first  book,  a  poem 
written  at  a  considerably  later  date,  when  he  thought  he  had 
found  a  new  God  and  a  present  help.     He  replies  that  a  new 
God  was  required  to  save  the  world.     But  in  the  first  period 
of  his  literary  work  he  had  no  hope.     He  had  not  even  a 
political  party  to  which  he  could  join  himself  and  for  which 
he  could  fight.     He  had  lost  his  old  faith  in  the  Republican 
party,  and  found  nothing  to  replace  it ;   the  mind  of  man 
craved  for  the  help  of  God,  and  there  was  no  God  known  to 
it.     So  Horace  consoled  himself  by  an  excursion  into  the 
land  of  fancy  and  of  dreams.     The  Romans,  as  he  says,  had 
now  only  one  chance  left.    They  could  abandon  their  country, 
and  go  far  away  from  Italy  into  the  Western  Ocean,  to  find 
that  happy  land  of  which  legend  tells  and  poets  sing,  where 
the  Golden  Age  of  quiet  and  peace  and  plenty  is  always 
present,  because  here  the  degeneration  which  had  affected 
the  whole  Mediterranean  world  had  never  begun.     And  so 
the  poet  calls  upon  all  true  men  and  good  patriots  to  abandon 
their  country,  to  desert  Rome,  and  sail  forth  into  the  Atlantic 


VI.    The  Empire  as  the   World's  Hope        53 


Ocean,  seeking  a  "  new  world  to  redress  the  balance  of  the 
old  world  " — to  dwell  in 

The  rich  and  happy  isles 
Where  Ceres  year  by  year  crowns  all  the  untill'd  land  with  sheaves, 
And  the  vine  with  purple  clusters  droops,  unpruned  of  all  her  leaves'; 
Where  the  olive  buds  and  burgeons,  to  its  promise  ne'er  untrue, 
And  the  russet  fig  adorns  the  tree,  that  graffshoot  never  knew; 
Where  honey  from  the  hollow  oak  doth  ooze,  and  crystal  rills 
Come  dancing  down  with  tinkling  feet  from  the  sky-dividing  hills; 
There  to  the  pail  the  she-goats  come,  without  a  master's  word, 
And  home  with  udders  brimming  broad  returns  the  friendly  herd. 

For  Jupiter,  when  he  with  brass  the  Golden  Age  alloy'd, 
That  blissful  region  set  apart  by  the  good  to  be  enjoy'd ; 
With  brass  and  then  with  iron  he  the  ages  sear'd,  but  ye, 
Good  men  and  true,  to  that  bright  home  arise  and  follow  me  I " 

Evidently,  this  fanciful  description  of  the  Golden  Age  in 
the  Western  Isles,  with  the  advice  to  the  Romans  to  take 
refuge  there,  does  not  express  any  serious  belief.  Horace 
and  the  popular  mind  generally  had  no  cure  to  suggest  for 
the  malady  of  the  State.  To  them  the  world  of  reality  had 
sunk  beyond  salvation,  and  human  life  had  degenerated  into 
a  riot  of  bloodshed  and  strife.  Only  in  dreamland  was  there 
any  refuge  from  the  evils  of  actual  life.  Horace  is  here  only 
"  the  idle  singer  of  an  empty  day,"  singing  in  the  brief  inter- 
val between  the  last  massacre  and  the  next  one.  There  is 
no  faith,  no  belief,  no  reality,  in  the  poem,  because  the  poet 
had  no  religion,  while  the  popular  mind  felt  in  a  vague  fashion 
that  God  alone  could  help  now,  but  knew  no  God  to  turn  to. 
In  this  poem  despair  was  seeking  a  moment's  oblivion,  and 
cheating  itself  with  the  false  words  of  hope. 

But,  while  there  is  no  reality  in  the  proposed  remedy,  no 
one  can  doubt  or  has  ever  doubted  that  the  poem  is  political 
and  touches  on  the  real  facts  of  the  Roman  situation.     This 
was  what  the  people  thought  and  felt  and  vaguely  said.     The 


54      I-   Paulinism  in  the  GrcBco-Roman   World 

old  Rome  could  not  stand :  the  Republican  and  aristocratic 
party,  which  had  fought  to  maintain  the  old  Rome,  was  mis- 
taken and  practically  dead,  and  its  policy  had  utterly  failed. 
The  poem  is  really  the  expression  of  a  despairing  acquiescence 
in  the  tyranny  of  the  Triumvirate  and  the  autocracy  of  the 
coming  Empire.  This  was  the  reluctant  and  despairing  view 
with  which  Tacitus  a  century  later  (and  many  for  whom 
Tacitus  speaks)  regarded  the  government  of  the  Flavian 
Emperors:  a  Republican  constitution,  though  theoretically 
the  best,  was  too  good  for  the  Roman  people,  and  the  auto- 
cracy  was  the  only  government  that  was  practically  possible. 
And,  after  a  similar  fashion,  in  the  Sixteenth  Epode  Horace 
abandoned  definitely  his  Republican  views,  to  dream  about 
freedom  and  to  acquiesce  in  the  slavery  of  a  military  des- 
potism. 

For  our  purpose  the  most  important  feature  of  the  Epode 
is  its  expression  of  the  general  opinion  that  no  salvation 
could  be  hoped  for  except  through  some  superhuman  aid. 
Man,  left  to  himself,  had  degenerated  and  must  degenerate. 
As  we  have  already  seen,  this  was  the  almost  universal 
pagan  view.  St.  Paul  makes  this  view  the  starting-point 
of  his  philosophy  and  history  :  God  alone  can  give  help  and 
preserve  true  civilisation.  In  this  the  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles 
agrees  with  the  almost  universal  Gentile  thought.  What  he 
adds  to  it  is  the  evangel  of  the  way,  revealed  first  to  the 
Hebrews  imperfectly,  now  perfectly  to  all  men. 

We  see,  then,  that  the  opinion  of  Virgil  stands  by  itself, 
practically  unprecedented  in  pagan  literature.  How  did  this 
idea  of  hope  of  an  immediate  and  present  salvation  through 
a  new-born  child  take  form  in  his  mind  ? 

It  may  be  assumed,  for  the  moment,  that  chronology  and 
general  conditions  permit  the  supposition  that  Virgil's  poem 


VI.    The  Empire  as  the   World's  Hope        55 

started  frOm  and  gave  the  answer  to  Horace's.^^  The  late 
Professor  Kiessh'ng,  of  Berlin,  pointed  out  that  Virgil  in  this 
poem  caught  up  and  echoed  two  of  Horace's  phrases.  It 
seems  beyond  doubt  that 

nee  magnos  metuent  armenta  leones 
is  not  independent  of  Horace's 

nee  ravos  timeant  armenta  leones ; 
and  similarly  that  Virgil's 

ipsae  lacte  domum  referent  distenta  capcllae  ubera 

has  some  connection  with  Horace's 

illic  iniussae  venient  ad  mulctra  eapellae 
refertque  tenta  grex  amicus  ubera. 

Two  contemporary  poets,  known  to  one  another,  each  (as 
we  may  be  certain)  familiar  with  the  other's  work,  do  not 
write  in  this  way  by  accident.  The  resemblance  is  inten- 
tional, and  was  regarded,  both  by  themselves  and  by  the 
world,  as  a  compliment  paid  by  the  imitator  to  the  imitated. 
The  question  might  be  raised,  however,  which  was  the 
imitator;  and  there  is  a  certain  probability  a  priori  that 
Horace,  as  the  younger  and  less  distinguished,  was  the 
imitator ;  for  we  know  of  other  places  in  which  beyond 
doubt  that  was  the  case.  But  in  this  instance  Kiessliner 
concludes  that  Virgil  was  the  one  who  echoed  Horace ;  and 
his  reasoning  from  internal  evidence  seems  conclusive. 
Moreover  Virgil's  poem  was  written  in  the  year  40  B.C.,  and 
(as  is  universally  accepted)  in  the  latter  part  of  the  year; 
whereas  Horace's  poem,  which  arose  out  of  the  horrors 
and  suffering  of  the  bloody  Perusian  war  and  expressed  the 
feeling  of  repulsion  excited  thereby  in  the  poet's  mind,  can 
hardly  be  placed  later  than  the  early  months  of  40  or  the  end 
of  41  B.C.     The  imitation  is  a  graceful  compliment  paid  by 


56      I.   Paulinism  in  the  Gi'-cBCO-Roman    World 

the  older  and  more  famous  poet  to  his  young  and  as  yet  little 
known  contemporary. 

We  can  appreciate  how  much  the  compliment  meant  to 
Horace,  and  understand  that  the  language  of  the  Ode  which 
he  addressed  many  years  later  to  Virgil  is  not  hyperbolic, 
but  perfectly  sincere  and  well-deserved.  It  was  the  kind- 
ness and  courtesy  which  Virgil  showed  to  Horace  when  still 
struggling  with  poverty  that  endeared  the  older  poet  to  the 
younger  ;  and  this  spirit  of  kindness  and  courtesy  prompted 
Virgil  to  pay  this  graceful  compliment,  which  may  be  re- 
garded as  the  beginning  of  the  friendship  between  the  two 
poets.  That  friendship  opened  the  door  of  society  to  Horace. 
After  a  time  Virgil  introduced  him  to  Maecenas,  who  became 
his  patron  and  intimate  friend.  In  the  sunshine  of  mod(?rate 
prosperity  his  character  expanded  and  blossomed  into  the 
genial  temper  of  his  maturer  work.  A  deep  gulf,  caused 
by  a  profound  difference  of  tone  and  spirit,  separates 
Horace's  later  from  his  earliest  work.  While  he  was  strug- 
gling amid  hard  fortune,  he  was  bitter  and  narrow.  What 
he  quickly  became  after  he  met  Virgil,  the  world  knows  and 
appreciates. 

Now,  looking  at  the  Fourth  Eclogue  from  this  point  of 
view,  let  us  place  it  beside  the  Sixteenth  Epode,  and  see 
what  meaning  it  gathers  from  the  collocation.  Horace  had 
said  that  no  hope  for  the  Romans  existed,  except  that  they 
should  abandon  Italy  and  Rome,  to  seek  a  happy  life  in  the 
islands  of  the  Western  Ocean.  Virgil  replies  that  the  better 
age  of  which  Horace  dreams  is  here  in  Italy  present  with 
them,  now  just  beginning.  The  very  words  in  which  Horace 
had  described  a  fabulous  island  and  a  legendary  Golden  Age 
are  applied  by  Virgil  to  describe  Italy  as  it  will  soon  be,  as 
the  child  already  born  in  Italy  will  see  it.     What  are  mere 


VI.    The  Empire  as  the   World's  Hope        57 

fanciful  marvels  when  told  about  an  unknown  isle  of  the 
Ocean  becomes  real  in  the  imaginative  vision  of  Virgil,  for 
they  are  being  now  realised  in  Italy  under  the  new  rule, 
through  the  power  of  the  peace  and  good  order  and  wise 
administration,  settled  government  and  security  of  property, 
which  have  been  established  in  the  country. 

Reading  the  two  poems  together,  and  remembering  that 
they  were  written  within  a  year  of  one  another  by  two  friends, 
one  cannot  doubt  that  they  were  companion  and  contrasted 
pieces,  responding  one  to  the  other.  They  say  to  Rome 
respectively:  "Seek  your  happiness  by  fleeing  far  into  the 
Western  Ocean " ;  and  "  Your  happiness  is  now  being 
wrought  out  before  your  eyes  in  Italy".  A  glance  suffices 
to  show  the  intention  to  any  one  who  has  eyes  to  see.  But 
in  literary  criticism  inability  to  perceive  more  than  one  has 
been  taught  and  habituated  to  see  is  a  feature  of  some  of  the 
most  learned  scholars. 

Virgil  is  the  prophet  of  the  new  age  of  Italy.  He  was 
always  thinking  about  Italy  and  imagining  what  it  might 
be  made  by  the  application  of  prudence,  forethought,  and 
true  knowledge.  The  object  of  the  Georgics  is  to  describe 
what  Italy  might  become,  if  agriculture  were  wisely  and 
thoroughly  carried  out.  "  You  have  all  you  need  in  Italy 
the  most  beautiful  and  the  best  country  of  the  whole  world 
if  you  will  only  use  it  right."  The  intention  of  the  poem 
is  to  force  this  lesson  home  to  the  Roman  mind. 

The  practical  and  skilful  administration  of  Augustus 
appealed  to  Virgil.  He  saw  that  Augustus  had  wise  plans 
and  skill  to  carry  them  into  effect.  He  was  a  convinced 
adherent  and  apostle  of  the  Emperor ;  and  in  this  poem  he 
sets  forth  the  Gospel  of  the  new  Empire.  The  union  of 
science  and  government  had  made  the  Mediterranean  world 


58      I.   Paulinism  in  the  Grceco-Ronian   World 

fertile.  The  science  had  originally  been  supplied  by  the  theo- 
cratic order,  when  the  accumulated  experience  and  growing 
wisdom  of  a  people  was  concentrated  at  the  hieron  of  each 
district,  where  the  Goddess  educated  and  guided,  nourished 
and  tended  her  people.  The  union  of  science  and  govern- 
ment was  now  beginning  to  make  Italy  perfect  under  the 
new  Empire ;  that  union  would  soon  destroy  every  noxious 
plant  and  animal,  produce  all  useful  things  in  abundance 
from  the  soil,  tame  all  that  was  wild,  improve  nature  to  an 
infinite  degree,  make  the  thorn-tree  laugh  and  bloom  with 
flowers :  it  would  naturalise  at  home  all  that  was  best  in 
foreign  lands,  and  thus  render  Italy  independent  of  imports 
and  so  perfectly  self-sufficient  that  navigation  would  be 
unnecessary. 

In  this  last  detail  we  have  one  of  those  startlingly  modern 
touches  which  so  often  surprise  us  in  Roman  literature. 
Virgil  would  have  no  free  trade.  The  ideal  he  aimed  at 
was  that  Italy  should  depend  on  itself  alone,  and  not  on 
sea-borne  products.  His  ideal  is  here  different  from  and 
narrower  than  the  Imperial.  He  does  not  think  of  binding 
the  lands  of  the  whole  Empire  into  a  unity,  as  the  Emperois 
desired  ;  he  wishes  only  that  Italy  should  learn  to  produce 
everything  for  itself  and  that  thereafter  the  "  estranging  sea  " 
should  separate  once  more  the  lands,  and  navigation  should 
cease.  He  probably  had  not  thought  of  all  that  was  implied 
in  this  ideal. 

That  the  Fourth  Eclogue  stands  in  close  relation  with  the 
new  Empire  is  obvious.  It  is  the  wise  new  system  of  rule 
that  is  to  produce  these  blessed  results  for  Italy.  But 
there  is  as  yet  no  trace  of  the  autocratic  idea  in  the  poem. 
The  future  Emperor  is  neither  named  nor  directly  alluded 
to :  he  was  still  only  one  of  a  small  coalition,  the  Triumvir- 


VI.    The  Empire  as  the   World's  Hope         59 

ate,  and  his   name  was    Octavianus.      The    title    Augustus 
was  bestowed  upon  him  many  years  afterwards,   in  27  B.C. 

Virgil  thinks  of  the  continuance,  in  an  improved  form,  of 
the  old  Roman  system  of  constitutional  government  by  magis- 
trates {honores),  of  the  political  career  open  to  all  Romans 
in  the  old  way,  and  of  the  military  training  which  was  the 
foundation  and  an  essential  part  of  the  Roman  education. 
War  must  continue  for  a  time,  in  order  that  the  young 
Roman  may  be  educated  in  the  true  Roman  fashion.  But 
it  will  be  foreign  war,  carried  on  in  the  East ;  new  Argonauts 
must  explore  and  conquer  and  bring  under  the  Roman  peace 
the  distant  Orient ;  a  new  Achilles  was  now  sailing  for 
another  Troy  in  the  person  of  Antony,  who  was  charged 
with  the  government  of  the  whole  East  and  the  conduct  of 
the  Parthian  war.  The  triumvirate,  Antony,  Octavian  and. 
Lepidus,  was  not  in  appearance  an  autocracy  :  it  was,  in  name 
at  least,  a  board  of  three  commissioners  for  establishing  the 
Republic,  professedly  a  temporary  expedient  to  cure  the 
troubles  of  the  State.  To  speak  or  think  of  a  single 
Emperor,  or  to  connect  the  salvation  of  Rome  with  any 
single  human  being,  was  treason  to  the  triumvirate,  and  was 
specially  out  of  place  at  the  moment  when  Virgil  was  writing, 
shortly  after  the  peace  of  Brundisium  had  established  con- 
cord and  equality  between  Antony  and  Octavian.  In  the 
Eclogue  a  more  obvious  allusion  is,  in  fact,  made  to  Antony 
than  to  Octavian,  for  every  one  at  the  time  recognised 
Antony  in  the  new  Achilles  who  was  starting  for  an  eastern 
war:  the  provinces  east  of  the  Adriatic  Sea  were  under 
Antony's  charge,  and  a  Parthian  war  was  in  progress. 

But,  while  Antony  is  more  directly  alluded  to,  the  thought 
that  incites  the  poem  and  warms  the  poet's  enthusiasm  is 
the  wise  and  prudent  administration  of  Italy  by  Octavian 


6o      I.   Paulinism  in  the  Grcsco-Roman   World 

That  is  the  real  subject.  The  enh"ghtened  forethought  of 
Octavian  and  Agrippa  made  their  rule  the  beginning  of  a 
new  era  in  Italy ;  and  Virgil  looked  forvard  to  a  continuous 
growth  in  the  country. 

Still  less  is  there  any  dynastic  thought  in  the  Fourth 
Eclogue,  The  idea  that  an  expected  son  of  Octavian,  or  the 
son  of  any  other  distinguished  Roman,  is  alluded  to,  is  ana- 
chronistic and  simply  ridiculous.  Every  attempt  to  identify 
the  young  child  mentioned  in  the  poem  with  any  actual  child 
born  or  to  be  born  has  been  an  utter  failure,  and  takes  this 
Eclogue  from  a  false  point  of  view.  The  idea  of  some 
literary  critics  is  that  the  poem  celebrates  the  expected  birth 
of  a  son,  who  unfortunately  for  the  poet  turned  out  to  be  a 
daughter.  This  idea  is  really  too  ludicrous  for  any  one  but 
a  confirmed  literary  and  "  Higher  "  Critic.  A  poet  does  not 
work  so ;  even  a  "  poet  laureate  "  could  not  work  under  such 
conditions. 

Least  of  all  is  there  any  idea  in  the  Fourth  Eclogue  of 
deifying  either  Octavian  personally  or  a  son  of  his  who  might 
hereafter  be  born.  That  view  is  not  merely  untrue  to  the 
existing  facts  of  the  conjoint  governmeni  and  the  union  of 
Octavian  and  Antony.  It  misunderstands  and  misrepresents 
the  development  of  the  Imperial  idea  and  the  growth  (or 
growing  perversion)  of  thought  in  Rome ;  it  places  Virgil  on 
a  plane  of  feeling  far  too  low ;  it  is  a  hopeless  anachronism 
in  every  point  of  view.  Schaper,  in  a  very  interesting  paper, 
pointed  out  many  years  ago  that  the  deification  of  Augustus 
and  his  son  and  his  dynasty  was  wholly  inconsistent  with 
the  composition  of  the  Eclogue  so  early  as  B.C.  40.  The 
paper  was  convincing  and,  in  a  certain  way,  conclusive.  But 
instead  of  drawing  the  inference  that  the  deification  of  the 
dynasty  is  a  false  idea,  read  into  the  poem  under  the  preju- 


VI.    The  Evipire  as  the   World's  Hope        6i 

dice  caused  by  the  development  of  history  in  the  years 
following  after  A.D.  40,  he  propounded  the  impossible  theory 
that  the  poem  was  composed  at  a  later  time,  ?>.,  in  the 
period  ending  June  B.C.  23,  when  Augustus  was  governing 
no  longer  as  triumvir,  but  as  consul,  and  was  practically  sole 
m.'ister  of  the  Empire,  though  maintaining  the  Republican 
forms  and  the  nominal  election  of  another  consul  along  with 
himself.  To  support  this  theory',  Schaper  eliminated  the 
allusion  to  Pollio's  consulship,  which  fixes  the  composition 
to  the  year  40  B.C.,  reading  Solis  instead  of  Polio  (for  that, 
as  he  maintained,  was  the  correct  spelling).  To  make  this 
theory  possible  chronologically,  and  reconcile  it  with  the 
date  of  the  publication  of  the  Eclogues  not  very  long  after 
40  B.C.,  Schaper  supposed  that  the  Fourth  Eclogue  was  com- 
posed at  a  later  date  and  inserted  in  a  revised  second  edition 
of  the  Eclogues.^^ 

These  impossible  buttresses  of  Schaper's  theory  were 
universally  rejected;  the  faults  of  his  paper  distracted  atten- 
tion from  its  real  merits  ;  and  the  perfectly  unanswerable 
argument  from  which  he  started  was  tacitly  set  aside,  as  if  it 
shared  in  the  error  of  the  theory  which  he  had  deduced 
from  it. 

The  truth  is  that  the  poem  belongs  to  an  earlier  stage  of 
thought  than  the  worship  of  Augustus  ;  and  the  Divine  idea 
in  it  was  still  so  vague  that  it  was  readily  capable  of  being 
interpreted  in  accordance  with  subsequent  history.  But  it 
was  equally  capable  of  being  developed  in  a  different  direc- 
tion and  in  a  nobler  and  truer  style.  Had  the  Pauline  idea 
of  Christianity  as  the  religion  of  the  Empire  been  successfully 
wrought  out  during  the  first  century,  the  Fourth  Eclogue 
would  have  seemed  equally  suitable  to  that  line  of  develop- 
ment.    The  later  popular  instinct,  which  regarded  the  poem 


62      I.   Paulinism  in  the  Grceco-Roman   World 


as  a  prophecy  of  the  birth  of  Christ,  was  not  wholly  incorrect. 
The  poem  contained  an  inchoate  idea,  unformed  and  vague, 
enshrining  and  embodying  that  universal  need  which  indi- 
cated "  the  fulness  of  time "  and  the  world's  craving  for  a 
Saviour.  The  Roman  world  needed  a  Saviour ;  it  was  con- 
scious of  its  need  ;  it  was  convinced  that  only  Divine  inter- 
vention could  furnish  a  Saviour  for  it.  Paul  was  fully  aware 
that  this  universal  craving  and  unrest  and  pain  existed  in 
the  Roman  world ;  and  he  saw  therein  the  presage  of  the 
birth  of  Divine  truth.  "  The  whole  creation  groaneth  and 
travaileth  in  pain  until  now." 

The  political  side  of  the  Fourth  Eclogue  is  emphatically 
marked,  and  was  indubitably  recognised  at  the  time.  The 
poem  suited  the  situation,  and  it  glorified  the  wise  policy 
of  Augustus.  We  are  not  blind  to  this  side  of  the  facts, 
which  (as  I  believe)  suggested  to  Maecenas  and  Augustus 
how  much  strength  might  be  gained  for  the  Imperial  move- 
ment by  associating  it  with  the  new  ideas  which  Virgil  ex- 
pressed. But  the  significance  of  this  aspect  should  not  blind 
us  to  the  fact  that  this  alone  is  insufficient  to  explain  the 
genesis  and  the  full  meaning  of  the  poem.  It  was  not 
simply  a  political  pamphlet  in  verse,  though  it  had  political 
significance. 

What  then  was  the  origin  of  the  poem  ?  Apart  from  the 
political  idea,  the  Fourth  Eclogue  is  a  vision  of  the  true 
Italy,  of  Italy  as  it  ought  to  be  and  might  be.  With  the 
eye  of  a  poet  and  the  certainty  of  a  prophet  Virgil  sees  this 
new  Italy  in  actual  process  of  coming  into  being,  and  describes 
what  he  sees. 

There  are  two  things  which  determine  the  evolution  of 
this  ideal  picture  in  Virgil's  poem.  He  is  perfectly  sure 
that  the  glorified  and  idealised  Italy  of  his  vision  is  being 


VI.    The  Empire  as  the   World's  Hope        6"^ 

realised  at  this  very  time  and  before  the  eyes  of  living  men, 
and  he  connects  that  realisation  with  a  new-born  child. 
These  are  two  ideas  to  which  no  real  parallel  can  be  found  in 
preceding  Greek  or  Roman  literature.  The  Better  Age  had 
been  conceived  by  the  Greeks  as  lying  in  the  past,  and  the 
world's  history  as  a  progress  towards  decay.  Even  where  a 
cycle  of  ages  was  spoken  of  by  the  Greek  philosophers,  it  was 
taken  rather  as  a  proof  that  no  good  thing  could  last,  than 
as  an  encouragement  to  look  forward  to  a  better  future. 
Now  Virgil's  new  age,  though  spoken  of  in  his  opening 
lines  as  part  of  a  recurring  cycle,  is  not  pictured  before  his 
view  as  evanescent ;  it  is  coming,  but  its  end  is  not  seen  and 
not  thought  of  by  him. 

How  does  Virgil  arrive  at  his  firm  conviction  that  the 
best  is  last,  and  that  the  best  is  surely  coming,  nay,  that  it 
now  is  ?  We  cannot  regard  it  as  arising  entirely  from  his 
own  inspiration,  springing  mature  and  full-grown,  like  Athena 
from  the  head  of  Zeus.  Rather  we  must  attempt  to  trace 
the  stages  in  its  development  to  the  perfect  form  which  it 
has  in  this  poem. 

Again,  the  association  of  a  young  child  with  this  coming 
age  is  something  entirely  alien  to  Greek  and  Roman  thought. 
It  springs  from  a  sense  of  a  Divine  purpose,  developing  in 
the  growth  of  the  race  and  working  itself  out  in  the  life  of 
other  new  generations,  a  thought  not  in  itself  foreign  to  the 
philosophical  speculation  of  Greece,  but  developed  here  in  a 
form  so  unusual  that  it  imperatively  demands  recognition 
and  explanation. 

The  idea  that  the  nation  may  and  must  look  fonvard  to  a 
happier  future,  pledged  by  Divine  promise,  was  too  delicate 
for  the  Greek  philosophers,  though  one  finds  it  to  a  certain 
degree  in  the  poets.     Nowhere  can  we  find  any  previous 


64      I.   Paulinism  in  the  Grcsco-Roman   World 

philosophy  or  religion  that  had  grasped  the  thought  firmly 
and  unhesitatingly,  except  among  the  Hebrew  race.  To  the 
Hebrew  prophets,  and  to  them  alone,  the  Better  Age  lay 
always  in  the  future  : 

The  best  is  yet  to  be, 
The  last  of  hie,  for  which  the  first  was  made. 

The  Hebrews  always  recognised  that  the  Divine  purpose 
reserved  for  them  a  future  better  than  the  past,  and  they 
alone  associated  the  coming  of  the  Better  Age  with  the  birth 
of  a  child.  We  must,  I  think,  look  to  the  East  and  to 
Hebrew  poetry  for  the  germ  from  which  Virgil's  poem 
developed,  though  in  the  process  of  development  ideas 
derived  from  other  sides  determined  its  growth  and 
affected  its  character. 

Looking  at  the  poem  from  another  point  of  view,  we  re- 
cognise that  it  is  a  metrical  experiment,  which  Virgil  tried 
in  this  one  case  and  never  repeated.  Its  metrical  character 
seemed  to  him  appropriate  to  his  treatment  of  this  one 
subject ;  but  he  found  no  other  subject  which  it  suited,  and 
he  considered  that  the  true  development  of  the  heroic  verse 
lay  in  another  direction. 

Landor,  in  his  criticisms  on  Catullus's  twelfth  ode,  has  the 
following  remarks  on  the  metrical  character  of  this  Eclogue  : 
"The  worst,  but  most  admired,  of  Virgil's  Eclo'^ues,  vvms 
composed  to  celebrate  the  birth  of  Pollio's  son  in  his  con- 
sulate. In  this  Eclogue,  and  in  this  alone,  his  versification 
fails  him  utterly.  The  lines  afford  one  another  no  support. 
For  instance  this  sequence  (lines  4-6) :  — 

Ultima  Cumaei  venit  jam  carminis  aetas. 
Magnus  ab  integro  saeclorum  nascitur  oido. 
Jam  redit  et  Virgo,  redeunt  Saturnia  regna. 

Toss  thenn  m  ft  bag  and  throw  them  out,  and  they  will  fall 


VI.    The  Empire  as  the   World's  Hope        65 

as  riohtly  in  one  place  as  another.  Any  one  of  them  may 
come  first ;  any  one  of  them  come  last ;  any  one  of  them 
may  cume  immediately;  better  that  any  should  never  come 
at  all."  But  in  his  criticism  (apart  from  the  fact  that  the 
force  of  lines  4-6  would  suffer  seriously  if  they  were  trans- 
posed, though  grammar  and  metre  might  be  uninjured) 
Landor  has  not  observed  that  Virgil  in  this  poem  is  deliber- 
atel>-  trying  an  experiment  in  order  to  obtain  a  special  effect. 
We  do  not  maintain  that  the  ruling  metrical  form  would  be 
suitable  for  ordinary  Latin  use,  but  its  employment  in  this 
case  is  obviously  intentional,  and  dictated  by  the  subject;  it 
is  no  case  of  accidental  failure  in  versification.  But  Virgil 
recognised  that  it  did  not  suit  the  Latin  genius,  and  he  never 
repeated  it.  He  used  it  here,  because  the  subject  was  not 
purely  Latin  :  prophecy  of  this  kind  was  not  akin  to  the 
Latin  temperament  or  the  Latin  language. 

The  two  most  distinguishing  and  salient  metrical  char- 
acteristics of  this  Eclogue  are,  first,  that  the  stops  coincide 
more  regularly  with  the  ends  of  lines  than  in  any  other 
passage  of  Virgil,  so  that  to  a  large  extent  each  single  verse 
gives  a  distinct  sense  ;  and,  secondly,  that  in  a  number  of 
cases  the  second  half  of  the  line  repeats  with  slight  variation 
the  meaning  of  the  first  half,  or,  when  the  sense  is  enclosed 
in  two  hexameters,  the  second  repeats  the  meaning  of  the 
first.  These  characteristics  are  unlike  any  previous  treatment 
of  the  hexameter.  As  to  the  first,  it  is  true  that  in  the 
earliest  stages  of  Virgil's  metre  the  stops  are  placed  at  the 
ends  of  lines  to  a  much  greater  extent  than  in  its  later  stages. 
But  there  is  a  general  agreement  among  Latin  scholars  that 
the  Fourth  Eclogue  is  not  the  earliest ;  and  even  compared 
with  the  earliest,  its  metre  is  seen  to  be  something  peculiar 
ftnd  apart 


66      I.   Paulinism  in  the  Grceco-Roman   World 

These  characteristics  are  distinctly  those  of  Hebrew  poetry ; 
and  it  appears  to  me  that  the  metrical  treatment  of  this 
Eclogue  can  hardly  be  explained  except  as  an  experiment 
made  in  imitation  of  the  same  original,  from  which  sprang 
the  central  conception  of  the  Better  Age  surely  approaching, 
and  inaugurated  by  the  birth  of  a  child.  Virgil  found  the 
idea  and  the  metrical  form  together ;  that  is  to  say,  he  did 
not  gather  the  idea  from  a  secondary  source,  but  had  read 
it  (in  translation)  as  expressed  by  a  great  writer,  whose  poetic 
form  dominated  his  mind  for  the  moment.  Only  a  writer  of 
the  loftiest  poetic  power  could  have  so  affected  the  mind  of 
Virgil.  We  notice,  too,  that  the  peculiar  metrical  form  is 
most  marked  where  tlie  expression  approaches  the  prophetic 
type,  while  in  the  descriptive  parts  the  metre  is  closer  to  the 
form  common  in  the  Eclogues. 

That  such  an  origin  for  Virgil's  idea  is  possible,  will  be 
doubted  by  no  one  who  takes  properly  into  account  both  the 
width  of  his  reading,  and  the  influence  which  the  strange  and 
unique  character  of  the  Jewish  nation  and  religion  (and  here 
the  religion  made  and  was  the  nation)  already  had  exerted 
and  was  exerting  on  the  Graeco-Roman  world.  That  is  a 
subject  over  which  there  hangs,  and  must  always  hang,  a 
thick  veil ;  but  enough  is  known  to  give  us  increasing  certainty, 
as  time  goes  on,  that  the  fascination  which  Judaism  exerted 
on  a  certain  class  of  minds  was  very  strong,  and  its  influence 
on  Roman  society  far  greater  than  is  apparent  in  the  superficial 
view  which  is  permitted  us  in  the  dearth  of  authorities. 

Finally,  the  often  quoted  analogies  with  several  passages 
of  the  prophet  Isaiah  afford  some  indication  as  to  the  identity 
of  the  great  poet  whose  words,  either  in  a  Greek  translation 
or  in  extracts,  had  come  before  Virgil,  and  influenced  the 
development  of  his  thought.     It  is  true  that  ttiere  are  numeroas 


VI.    The  Empi7'e  as  the   World's  Hope        67 

points  in  this  Eclogue  which  go  back  to  Greek  models.  The 
ideas  taken  up  by  Virgil  from  a  Semitic  source  are  de- 
veloped in  a  mind  rich  with  Hellenic  knowledge  and  strong 
with  a  vigorous  Italian  life.  Virgil  is  never  a  mere  imitator 
except  in  his  most  juvenile  work  ;  he  reforms  and  transforms 
everything  that  he  has  learned  from  his  great  instructors.  It 
is  an  Italian  idyll  that  he  has  given  us,  not  a  mere  transplan- 
tation of  a  foreign  idea,  or  of  any  number  of  foreign  ideas.^* 

The  Hebrew  idea  of  a  growth  towards  a  happier  future 
through  the  birth  of  a  Divine  child  was  simmering  in  his 
mind,  when  Horace's  despairing  poem  declaring  that  no 
happiness  for  Rome  could  be  found  except  in  voluntary 
exile  to  the  Islands  of  the  West  caught  his  attention,  and 
drew  from  him  a  reply.  As  a  convinced  and  enthusiastic 
supporter  of  Augustus,  he  declared  that  peace  and  happiness 
were  being  realised  in  Italy  by  the  wise  rule  of  the  Triumvir. 
With  this  he  interwove  the  almost  universal  thought  of  his 
contemporaries  that  Divine  aid  alone  could  afford  real  and 
permanent  improvement  in  the  condition  of  the  State ;  and 
this  Divine  aid  expressed  itself  to  him  in  the  form  that  he 
had  caught  from  the  Hebrew  poetry. 

Whom  then  did  Virgil  think  of  as  the  child  ?  He  must 
have  had  some  idea  in  his  mind.  There  can  be  no  doubt  as 
to  this,  if  we  simply  look  at  the  genesis  of  the  Imperial  cult. 
The  power  of  that  cult  lay  in  a  certain  real  fact,  the  majesty 
and  dignity  and  character  of  the  Roman  people,  which  was 
assumed  to  be  represented  by  the  Emperor  as  the  head  of 
the  State.  Augustus  permitted  worship  of  himself  only  in 
the  form  of  a  cult  of  "  Rome  and  Augustus  ".  To  a  Roman 
like  Virgil  in  B.C.  40,  the  Divine  child,  who  embodies  the 
future  of  Rome,  who  has  to  go  through  the  education  of  war 
and  magistracies   (as    the   poem   declares),   could    only  be 


68      I.   Paulinisvi  in  the  Grceco-Romaii   World 

"  Rome,"  i.e.,  the  Roman  people  collectively,  the  new  gener- 
ation of  Rome,  born  under  happier  auspices  and  destined  to 
glory  and  advancement  in  power  and  in  happiness.  As 
Virgil  apostrophises  the  one  Roman  as  typical  of  the  race 
and  its  destiny  in  the  famous  line,  often  quoted,  hi  revere 
iviperio populos.,  Rojnane,  ineuienlo,Q.vn\  as  Macaulay  imitating;" 
him  uses  the  same  figurative  speech,  "Thine,  Roman,  is  the 
pilum,"  to  paint  the  Roman  racial  character,  so  here  the 
Latin  poet,  with  the  Hebrew  thought  of  a  child  in  his  mind, 
can  describe  the  birth  and  infancy  of  the  future  Roman  as 
takmg  place  under  the  usual  natural  conditions. 

A  correct  appreciation  of  this  poem  makes  us  better  under- 
stand the  origin  and  character  of  the  Roman  Empire,  and 
the  problem  which  had  to  be  solved  in  its  constmction. 
The  poem  is  the  apotheosis  of  the  Empire,  but  not  of  auto- 
cracy. The  Divine  idea  in  it  is  wider  than  the  narrow  limits 
of  Roman  or  of  pagan  thought.  But  it  is  vague  as  well  as 
wide :  it  is  nobler  than  paganism  in  proportion  as  it  is  vague 
and  wide.  Owing  to  its  vagueness  it  was  susceptible  of  more 
than  one  interpretation  ;  and  in  the  lifetime  of  Virgil  it  was 
interpreted  as  the  Gospel  of  the  Empire ;  and  it  was  made 
the  starting-point  of  a  half-artificial,  half-genuine  literary 
movement,  which  set  up  the  New  Empire  as  the  Divine 
power  on  earth,  a  movement  fostered  by  Maecenas  and 
brilliantly  expressed  with  more  than  half-belief  by  Horace. 

But  the  Divine  idea  of  the  poem  was  true  enough  to  be 
also  capable  of  being  developed  in  a  different  direction  and 
in  a  nobler  style.  The  Eclogue  stands  at  the  parting  of  the 
ways,  and  has  not  yet  set  foot  on  the  worse  path  which  was 
soon  afterwards  chosen.  In  it  there  lay  much  more  than 
Virgil  was  himself  conscious  of.  He  did  not  see,  as  we  now 
can  recognise,  that  the  necessity  for  a  common  religion  lay 


VI.    The  Empii-e  as  the   World's  Hope        69 

before  the  Empire.  In  fact,  as  we  saw,  he  did  not  ij;ra.sp 
fully  the  Imperial  idea.     His  ideal  was  Italian,  not  Imperial. 

In  this,  as  in  so  many  other  ways,  the  Imperial  system 
offered  a  strange  and  striking  parallel  to  the  Pauline  system. 
They  were  two  attempts  to  achieve  a  similar  end  by  means 
which  in  some  respects  strongly  resembled  each  other.  The 
need  of  an  incarnate  God  to  save  the  world,  the  gathering  up 
in  the  new  system  of  all  that  was  excellent  in  older  history, 
were  Imperial  as  well  as  Pauline  ideas.  The  unity  and 
brotherhood  of  the  whole  Roman  world  was  the  goal  towards 
which  Imperial  policy  was  consciously  tending.  To  attain 
the  goal  a  common  religion  was  needed,  and  Augustus  found 
himself,  against  his  own  will  and  wish,  forced  to  make  an 
Imperial  religion.  His  attempt  to  restore  to  life  the  dead 
ceremonial  of  the  old  Roman  worship  proved,  as  he  could 
not  but  recognise,  utterly  inadequate.  The  Provinces  could 
never  have  been  brought  to  adopt  the  childish  ritual  of  the 
Arval  Brothers,  the  Salian  priests,  the  Lares,  and  so  on. 
The  majesty  of  Rome  incarnate  in  the  reigning  Emperor 
was  presented  to  Augustus  by  the  popular  choice  as  the 
common  religion  of  the   Empire. 

There  were  in  this  way  two  religions  proposed  for  the 
Empire;  the  Imperial  cult  was  demanded  by  the  populace, 
the  new  universal  religion  of  Christ  was  offered  by  the  in- 
sistent voice  ot  Paul.  The  Emperors,  if  they  refused  the 
latter,  must  accept  the  former ;  but  it  was  not  until  the  reign 
of  Domitian  that  the  Imperial  worship  was  frankly  and 
ostentatiously  adopted,  when  the  Christian  alternative  had 
been  refused  and  proscribed  absolutely.  Augustus,  who  was 
forced  to  organise  the  Imperial  cult  in  the  Provinces  as  a 
support  of  the  State,  was  always  a  little  ashamed  and  afraid 
of  it;  and  he  prohibited  it  in  Italy.     His  successors,  with 


JO      I.   Paulinism  in  the  Grcrco-Roman   World 

the  exception  of  Caligula,  a  half-insane  person,  but  insane 
with  the  idea  of  autocracy,  were  affected  in  some  degree  by 
the  same  feeling.  Some  regarded  it  as  a  mere  political 
fiction.  Domitian  began  to  take  a  real  pride  and  pleasure 
in  it. 

§  VII.  Paulinism  in  the  Roman  Empire. 

If  Paul  was  attempting  to  gather  together  into  his  ideal  of 
a  Christianised  society  all  that  was  true  and  Divine  in  the 
older  world  of  thought  and  life,  the  Roman  Empire  was 
working  at  the  same  problem  on  the  practical  side.  We 
have  just  seen  how  it  caught  up  from  the  Hellenistic  states 
many  excellent  devices  in  administration  and  wrought  them 
into  its  own  system.  That  is  typical  of  the  Imperial  policy. 
The  Empire  was  universal  in  its  intentions :  the  Emperor, 
father  of  his  country  the  Empire,  sought  to  turn  to  the 
advantage  of  his  children  all  that  had  been  discovered  or 
invented  in  the  past,  and  to  improve  upon  it.  Thus  there 
existed  the  same  antithesis  as  we  have  just  seen  in  §  V,  A 
universal  Paulinism  and  a  universal  Empire  must  either 
coalesce,  or  the  one  must  destroy  the  other.  The  question 
which  history  had  to  determine  was  whether  the  two  powers 
should  be  hostile  or  should  cc  a'esce. 

The  Empire  was  trying  to  weld  the  separate  nations  into 
a  great  Imperial  unity,  and  to  substitute  the  Roman  idea  of 
"  Province  "  for  the  older  idea  of  "  Nation,"  or  rather  to  make 
the  term  'Nation,"  Ethnos  in  Greek,  the  translation  of  the 
Latin  Provincia.  It  is  needless  and  impertinent  here  to 
describe  or  praise  the  skill  with  which  the  Empire  attempted 
this  task,  gradually  widening  the  area  of  Roman  citizenship 
by  taking  iiitj  it  those  who  stood  out  conspicuous  in  the 
Provinces  for  ability,  public  service,  education  and  wealth. 


VII.   Paulinism  in  the  Roman  Empire         yi 


What  is  pertinent  to  our  purpose  is  to  observe  that  Paulinistic 
Christianity  offered  itself  as  the  power  which  alone  could 
make  the  unity  vital  and  effective.  It  was  the  soul  which 
might  give  life  to  the  body  of  the  Empire,  a  body  which 
the  Emperors  were  trying  to  galvanise  into  life  by  the 
religion  of  Roman  patriotism,  the  worship  of  the  Roman 
majesty  as  incarnated  in  the  Emperors.  It  had  now  to  be 
determined  whether  the  Empire  would  accept  the  chance  of 
permanent  vitality  that  was  offered  to  it. 

The  history  of  the  Empire  needs  to  be  rewritten  from  this 
point  of  view :  the  relation  of  the  government  to  the  new  ^ 
universal  religion  determined  the  vicissitudes  of  its  fate. 
The  historians  who  write  the  story  of  the  Empire  devote  an 
occasional  footnote,  or  a  paragraph,  or  a  special  chapter  to 
what  are  called  the  "  Persecutions  ".  They  miss  entirely  the 
deeper  facts  of  the  situation.  The  one  overwhelming  factor 
in  the  situation  of  the  Empire  was  its  relation  to  the  Church  : 
in  their  reconciliation  lay  the  only  hope  of  permanent  strength 
for  the  Roman  State  :  all  other  considerations  were  secondary. 
A  large  portion  of  the  most  hardworking,  eager,  and  resolute 
people  in  the  most  progressive  Provinces — in  some  the 
overwhelming  majority — were  estranged  from  the  govern- 
ment and  exposed  to  an  intermittent  and  incalculable  risk  of 
suffering,  torture  and  death.  This  portion  was,  on  the  whole, 
the  educated  middle  class,  the  real  strength  of  the  State. 
The  government,  by  estranging  this  class,  was  throwing 
itself  unreservedly  on  the  support  of  the  soldiers. 

It  is  patent  to  all  that  the  deep-lying  weakness  and  ever- 
present  danger  of  the  Empire  was  two-fold.  In  the  first 
place  the  Imperial  authority  was  originally  based  on  military 
power;  and  the  soldiers  gradually  learned  that  they  could 
make   or  unmake    the    sovereign    as   they   pleased.      The 


72      I.   Paulinism  in  the  GrcBco-Roman   World 

Churches  of  Paul  offered  the  corrective  to  this  evil,  and 
made  it  possible  to  reform  the  foundations  of  the  Empire  by 
basing  it  on  the  support  of  the  educated  middle  class  through- 
out the  Roman  world,  a  solid  and  permanent  platform  for  the 
State  to  rest  on. 

The  second  danger  to  which  the  Empire  was  exposed, 
and  which  right  policy  would  have  aimed  at  diminishing  and 
eliminating,  arose  from  the  enormous  preponderance  of  an 
uneducated  populace.  This  danger  was  all  the  more  serious 
because  the  sovereign  power  nominally  lay  in  the  hands  of 
the  people,  and  the  uneducated  populace  formed  an  over- 
whelming majority  of  the  whole  people.  The  theory  of  the 
Imperial  constitution  was  that  the  people  entrusted  the 
supreme  power  to  the  Emperor,  as  Champion  of  the  Com- 
mons in  virtue  of  his  tribunician  authority,  and  received  back 
the  power  from  his  hands  at  death  or  resignation  or  de- 
thronement, until  they  chose  to  entrust  it  to  another.  It 
should  have  been  the  prime  duty  of  the  Empire  to  edu- 
cate the  populace  so  that  it  might  become  a  rational,  not 
an  irrational  and  incalculable  force.  A  government  which 
rested  firmly  on  the  agreement  of  an  educated  people  would 
have  been  saved  from  the  ever-present  menace  of  the 
soldiery,  whom  the  Emperors  dreaded  while  they  leaned 
upon  them. 

The  Pauline  Church  in  the  Empire  would  have  put  an  end 
to  the  danger,  and  strengthened  the  State  as  it  spread.  The 
educated  middle  class  who  constituted  the  Church  would 
have  grown,  and  reached  more  deeply  and  widely  into  the 
uneducated  masses,  raising  them  to  its  level.  The  ignorant 
proletariate  would  have  been  automatically  diminished,  as 
the  Church  increased  and  absorbed  into  itself  the  ignorant 
by  educating  them.     The  Roman  State  possessed  remarkable 


VII.   Paulinisfu  in  the  Romait  Empire         "jTy 

elasticity  and  was  quite  equal  to  the  task  of  adapting  itself 
to  this  progressive  development. 

Such  was  the  Pauline  policy.  The  Imperial  policy — apart 
from  some  exceptional  cases — was  to  neglect  education,  but 
to  feed  and  amuse  the  populace,  a  process  which  steadily 
degraded  and  brutalised  it  more  and  more.  The  vital  ques- 
tion for  the  State  was  which  of  these  policies  was  to  gain  the 
upper  hand.  The  Pauline  policy  would  have  saved  the 
ancient  civilisation  by  reforming  the  State.  The  policy  which 
was  actually  carried  into  effect  by  the  Emperors  ruined  the 
State  by  destroying  education. 

Some  of  the  Emperors  were  impelled  to  carry  out  this 
ruinous  policy  by  mere  opportunism  and  blindness  to  the 
future.  They  saw  that  the  populace  must  be  kept  quiet 
from  day  to  day  by  catering  for  its  body  and  its  soul. 
The  first  necessity  for  the  government  was  to  keep  in  stock 
a  large  enough  supply  of  food  in  Rome  to  prevent  famine  ; 
this  was  arranged  by  a  State  department,  for  with  the  insuffi- 
cient means  of  transport  that  then  existed,  private  enterprise 
could  not  be  relied  on  (as  is  possible  in  modern  times)  to 
pour  into  the  city  food  enough  to  serve  a  million  of  inhabit- 
ants. The  people  was  encouraged  to  think  of  nothino-  but 
games  and  amusements,  lest  it  should  think  of  more  serious 
things,  and  waken  to  a  sense  of  responsibility.  A  riot  in 
Rome  must  at  all  costs  be  prevented,  for  a  riot  was  the  one 
greatest  and  most  immediate  and  incalculable  danger  to 
which  the  State  was  exposed.  The  Emperors  were  therefore 
strongly  tempted  to  take  this  easiest  way  of  staving  off  the 
danger  by  humouring  the  populace ;  but  the  issue  was  in  the 
long  run  fatal. 

More  able  and  prudent  Emperors  dreaded  the  Pauline 
Church,  because  they  recognised  that  ultimately  it  must  be  a 


74      I-   Paulinism  in  the  GrcEco-Roman   World 

foe  to  autocracy.  The  Christians  were,  in  the  last  resort 
the  reforming  party:  the  Emperors  felt  that  reform  must 
affect  their  own  power.  Whereas  an  uneducated  populace 
could  never  use  the  power  that  it  nominally  possessed,  and 
must  entrust  it  to  an  autocrat,  a  people  trained  to  think  and 
to  feel  responsibility  might  seek  to  use  it  themselves  and  per- 
haps destroy  the  autocratic  system.  The  Church,  therefore, 
presented  itself  to  the  imagination  of  the  greatest  and  most 
far-seeing  Emperors  as  their  most  dangerous  rival ;  and,  as 
a  whole  the  Imperial  policy  was  inexorably  opposed  to  the 
reforming  party;  the  ablest,  wisest  and  most  patriotic  in 
spirit  of  the  Emperors  approved  (though  sometimes  very 
reluctantly)  the  policy  of  repression  and  persecution,  and  the 
salvation  which  Paul  offered  to  the  Roman  State  was  rejected. 
As  they  rejected  the  salutary  policy,  the  only  alternative  was 
to  continue  the  other  policy  of  cajoling  and  brutalising  the 
people  by  charity,  cheap  food  and  lavish  amusements. 

A  certain  number  of  the  Emperors  were  disposed  to  leave 
free  scope  to  their  great  rival,  the  Pauline  Church.  Their 
motives  can  hardly  be  determined,  and  were  doubtless  vari- 
ous ;  modern  historians  of  the  Empire,  prevented  by  the 
fashionable  blindness  from  seeing  the  real  character  of  the 
situation,  do  not  even  attempt  to  estimate  the  motives 
which  prompted  these  Emperors.  Some  apparently  who 
had  no  regard  for  the  Roman  glory,  were  actuated  by  mere 
idleness  and  carelessness,  and  were  disposed  simply  to  let 
things  go.  Others  perhaps  were  prompted  by  a  sort  of 
enlightened  selfishness:  they  saw  that  the  danger  to  the 
autocracy  from  the  Church  would  come  too  slowly  to  affect 
themselves,  and  acquiesced  in  the  aggrandisement  of  a  power 
which  could  not  do  them  personally  any  harm.  But  there 
were  some  cases  in  which,  as  I  cannot  but  think,  a  more 


vii.   Paulinism  in  the  Roman  Empire         75 

generous  and  a  wider  policy  was  consciously  chosen.  Some 
of  the  Emperors  felt  that  a  course  of  action  which  was  alien- 
ating and  trampling  upon  the  educated  middle  classes  of  the 
Empire  could  not  be  right  or  salutary,  and  attempted  on 
statesmanlike  grounds  to  abandon  the  persecuting  policy  and 
to  initiate  a  conciliation  between  the  autocracy  and  the  re- 
form movement ;  but  their  attempts  were  in  all  cases  quickly 
put  down.  The  spirit  of  Roman  determination  to  brook  no 
rival  and  accept  no  reform  that  came  from  without  was  too 
strong. 

How  far  did  Paul  understand  and  foresee  the  issues  that 
were  nascent  in  the  Empire  during  the  first  century?  Who 
can  say  exactly  how  far  a  great  statesman  can  foresee  in 
detail  the  distant  consequences  of  rejecting  the  salutary 
measure  that  he  advocates  ?  It  is  enough  to  say  that  he  sees 
the  cure  for  existing  evils,  and  advocates  with  all  his  might 
the  only  possible  remedy,  and  warns  the  State  that  ruin  is 
the  only  alternative.  So  much  we  can  say  that  Paul  saw 
and  did.  And  the  vague  mythopoetic  perception  of  the 
people  recognised  the  statesmanlike  intention  of  Paul,  and 
formed  a  legend  connecting  him  with  the  other  great  contem- 
porary stateman,  Seneca,  a  minister  to  whom  the  blindness 
of  modern  and  the  strong  prejudice  of  ancient  historians 
have  rendered  scant  justice.  The  period  of  Seneca's  tenure  of 
power  is  marked  by  a  wise  and  generous  tolerance,  which 
would,  if  continued,  have  prevented  the  persecutions  and  saved 
the  Empire,  and  which  was  fully  appreciated  by  Paul  and 
his  historian  Luke.  Such  was  the  spirit  of  Seneca's  brother 
Gallio,  whose  decision  in  the  case  at  Corinth  constituted  a 
precedent  so  important  as  to  be  almost  a  charter  for  the 
Christians,  until  it  was  overturned  by  the  decision  of  a 
higher  tribunal.     It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  a  Roman  Jew 


76      I.   Paulinism  in  the  G res co- Roman   World 

of  Tarsus  and  a  Roman  Phoenician  of  Spain  should  between 
them  have  come  so  near  to  saving  the  Roman  State  by  the 
wise  policy  which  the  one  preached  and  to  which  the  other 
allowed  free  sco[)e  and  growth.  The  wise  and  right  policy 
was  begun:  it  ruled  for  a  time:  it  underlies  the  whole  of 
Paul's  letters  :  Luke  and  i  Peter  protest  against  a  change  of 
policy.  Never  was  a  case  where  the  wise  statesmanship 
came  so  near  being  adopted  permanently  over  the  whole 
civilised  world. 

But  it  was  not  to  be.  That  the  recklessness  of  Nero 
reversed  the  policy  of  Seneca  was  not  in  itself  a  serious 
matter,  for  all  Nero's  acts  became  invalid  at  his  death.  But 
the  clear  insight  of  Vespasian  confirmed,  or  rather  legally 
instituted,  the  proscription  of  Christianity  ;  and  the  ablest 
and  greatest  Emperors  accepted  and  enforced  the  policy  of 
Vespasian,  though  like  him  for  a  long  time  they  did  so  only 
in  a  half-hearted  and  inconsequent  fashion.  The  Emperors 
staked  their  fate  against  the  Church,  and  they  lost. 

In  the  third  century  the  character  of  the  question  is  most 
clearly  seen.  Alexander  Severus  had  attempted  a  reconcilia- 
tion by  enthroning  Christ  in  the  Imperial  pantheon  ;  Philip 
the  Arabian,  Zenobia  the  Palmyran,  aimed  at  the  same  end 
in  various  ways;  but  no  conciliation  was  possible.  It  was  a 
question  between  the  military  power  and  the  thinking  middle 
class,  and  it  became  also  a  question  between  two  rival  re- 
ligions. The  State  worship  of  the  Emperors  proved  too 
feeble,  as  a  mere  sham  religion ;  and  Mithraism  was  made 
the  religious  banner  of  the  later  pagan  Empire  and  the  faith 
of  the  soldiers.  Mithras  or  the  Galilean :  such  was  the  later 
form  of  the  question ;  and  on  the  whole  the  West  was  mainly 
for  Mithras,  the  East  mainly  for  Christ. 

The  centre  of  gravity  of  the  whole  Empire  shifted  towards 


VII.   Pattlinisin  in  the  Roman  Evipire         77 

the  East.  The  city  of  Rome  was  no  longer  the  heart  and 
brain  and  seat  of  Hfe  for  the  Empire.  The  Provinces  were 
growing  every  year  in  importance,  and  the  East  especially 
so.  The  pre-eminence  of  the  city  of  Rome  was  becoming  in 
some  degree  a  mere  popular  superstition  and  an  antiquarian 
survival.  Now  the  Christian  Church  was  the  fullest  expres- 
sion of  this  new  spirit  in  the  Roman  world,  the  refusal  of  the 
Provinces  to  accept  the  tone  of  Rome.  Through  Christianity 
the  Provinces  conquered  Rome  and  to  a  certain  degree  re- 
invigorated  the  Empire.  The  shifting  eastward  of  the 
capital  of  the  Empire  was  in  reality  an  acknowledgment 
of  the  strength  of  the  new  religion,  for  the  East  was  mainly 
Christian,  while  the  power  of  the  government,  and  of  the 
army,  and  of  Mithraism,  the  triune  enemy,  lay  mainly  in  the 
West. 

Diocletian  was  able  to  see  the  fact,  though  not  the  reason. 
Constantine  saw  both  the  fact  and  the  reason :  he  had  a 
truer,  because  a  wider,  view.  Born  and  nurtured  in  childhood 
in  the  pagan  West,  he  lived  and  was  educated  for  many  years 
as  a  hostage  of  State  in  the  Christian  East.  He  acquired 
through  this  double  experience  a  knowledge  of  both  systems. 
Like  Paul  he  had  assimilated  in  some  degree  the  spirit  both 
of  the  East  and  of  the  West.  Because  he  understood  both, 
he  could  judge  better  between  them.  He  gauged  the  power 
of  both  forces.  Whether  from  far-seeing  ability  to  estimate 
the  future,  or  from  genuine  conviction — who  shall  be  able  to 
judge? — he  made  his  choice.  Diocletian  had  moved  the 
capital  from  Ivome  into  .Asia.  Constantine  founded  the  New 
Rome  on  the  Bosphorus,  and  the  Christian  Empire  began. 

But  it  was  too  late.  The  policy  of  massacre  on  a  vast 
scale,  inaugurated  by  Dccius,  had  been  carried  out  too 
thoroughly  by  Diocletian  and  his  co-emperors ;  and  it  pro- 


78      I.   Paulinism  in  the  G7^ceco- Roman   World 

duced  its  usual  ruinous  consequences.  A  State  which  is 
supported  on  massacre  is  doomed.  An  official  Christianity 
was  victorious,  but  PauHne  Christianity  had  perished,  and 
Paul  was  now  a  mere  saint,  no  longer  Paul  but  St.  Paul, 
forgotten  as  a  man  or  a  teacher,  but  remembered  as  a  sort 
of  revivification  of  the  old  pagan  gods.  Paulinistic  Christian- 
ity disappeared  almost  entirely  from  the  world  for  a  time ; 
but  it  was  not  dead  ;  it  was  only  waiting  its  opportunity ;  it 
revived  when  freedom  of  thought  and  freedom  of  life  began 
to  stir  in  Europe;  and  it  guided  and  stimulated  the  Protes- 
tants of  the  Reformation. 

§  VIII.    Conclusion. 

It  seems  needless  to  point  out  that  this  Pauline  idea  is 
incomparably  wider  than  Jewish,  and  that  the  simple  narrow 
Hebrew,  who  is  set  before  us  as  Paul  by  many  modem 
scholars,  could  never  have  conceived  it.  The  Jewish  mind 
was  content  to  recognise  the  infinite  power  of  God  and  the 
utter  powerlessness  of  men  before  Him:  He  is  the  potter; 
we  are  the  clay.  What  is  the  manner  in  which  God  deals 
with  man,  how  He  works  out  His  purpose  in  the  world, 
whether  there  are  steps  and  stages  in  the  process  of  His 
action,  and  if  so,  what  are  these  stages,  of  all  such  questions 
the  Semitic  mind  seemed  naturally  careless.  It  was  enough 
to  know  the  fact ;  investigation  of  the  manner  was  needless 
and  even  impertinent :  as  Abt  Vogler  says  in  Browning,  so 
the  Jews  thought, 

The  rest  may  reason  and  welcome :  'tis  we  musicians  know. 

Curiosity  and  investigation  of  that  kind  was  Greek,  not 
Semitic ;  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Paul  learned  it  in 
the  Greek  cities,  and  above  all  in  Tarsus.     This  was  the 


VIII.    Conclusion  79 


great  debt  that  he  owed  to  the  Greeks  (Rom.  i.  14).  Partly, 
doubtless,  through  the  formal  education  needed  to  fit  him 
for  the  sphere  in  which  he  was  born,  the  Gra;co-Roman 
world,  partly  through  unconscious  assimilation  of  the  atmo- 
sphere and  spirit  that  breithed  through  Hellenised  Tarsian 
society,  his  mind  had  been  widened  far  beyond  the  narrow 
limits  of  the  stereotyped  Judaism.  In  fully  conscious  thought 
during  his  maturer  years  he  broadened  both  Judaism  and 
Hellenism  till  they  were  co-extensive  with  the  world  and  co- 
incident with  one  another. 

To  specify  all  the  influences  that  worked  on  Paul  in  his 
youth  would  be  to  discuss  completely  the  situation  of  the 
Jewish  citizens  in  the  Grffico-Asiatic  cities  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  a  task  far  beyond  the  present  writer's  powers,  and 
one  that  transcends  the  bounds  of  known  evidence.  In  brief 
it  may  be  said  that  those  influences  were  some  theoretical, 
some  practical.  The  education  and  method  of  Greece  had 
deeply  affected  Paul's  mind,  as  has  just  been  stated.  The 
practical  surroundings  of  municipal  life  in  a  self-governing 
free  city  like  Tarsus  had  also  profoundly  influenced  him. 
These  forces  had  been  acting  on  him  for  generations,  for  he 
was  heir  to  all  that  his  ancestors  had  learned  in  their  position 
as  Tarsian  citizens  (see  Part  II.).  The  habit  of  electing 
their  own  rulers,  of  free  sovereign  discussion  of  their  own 
interests  in  public  meeting,  of  making  or  voting  on  their 
own  laws,  of  living  the  unfettered  life  of  Greek  citizens, 
moulds  the  character  of  men.  This  we  may  assume,  but 
we  cannot  weigh  it  or  measure  its  effect  by  any  mathematical 
formula. 

Our  plan  will  be  to  describe  the  Hellenic  cities  in  which 
Paul  lived  and  worked,  to  attempt  to  determine  the  varying 
tone  and  spirit  of  each,  so  far  as  our  insufficient  knowledge 


8o      I.    Paulinism  in  the  Grceco-Roman   World 


of  its  history  reaches,  and  thus  to  show  at  least  the  variety 
of  experience  through  which  Paul  passed. 

Jerusalem,  of  course,  does  not  figure  in  our  list.  Its  force 
was  reactionary;  and  the  years  which  Paul  spent  there  in 
his  youth  were  years  during  which  the  Hellenic  tendencies 
in  his  nature  lay  dormant  and  probably  were  weakened. 

Syrian  Antioch,  undoubtedly,  exercised  considerable  in- 
fluence in  moulding  Paul's  mind.  There  he  first  came  in 
contact  with  a  young  Church  of  the  new  kind  wider  than  the 
Palestinian  congregations.  But  it  is  not  our  intention  to 
devote  any  consideration  at  present  to  Antioch.  Luke  gives 
us  no  detail  whatsoever  about  the  city.  He  speaks  only  of 
the  congregation,  and  even  in  regard  to  it  he  mentions  little 
except  names  and  generalities.  In  his  narrative  at  Antioch 
there  is  nothing  that  even  remotely  suggests  personal  know- 
ledge and  eyewitness.  No  incident  lives  before  us,  until 
we  come  to  the  scene  when  Barnabas  and  Saul  were  sent 
forth  to  the  first  missionaiy  journey ;  and  here  there  is  nothing 
that  specially  belongs  to  Antioch.  It  is  a  universal  scene, 
that  belongs  to  the  Church  as  a  whole,  not  to  the  city  in 
which  it  chanced  to  take  place.  IVI  orcover,  the  present  writer 
has  never  been  able  to  visit  the  city,  and  has  no  personal 
knowledge  of  the  localities  ;  and  a  study  at  second-hand 
would  be  out  of  keeping  with  the  rest  of  this  book. 

There  remain  Tarsus  and  the  four  Galatian  cities.  Luke 
gives  no  details  about  Paul's  life  in  Tarsus.  One  must  con- 
clude that  he  had  no  personal  knowledge  of  the  city ;  and 
Paul's  relation  to  it  would  be  a  blank  to  us,  were  it  not  for 
what  he  himself  tells  about  it. 

The  interest  of  Luke  lies  in  the  Aegean  lands  and  on  the 
sea.  He  is  stamped  as  a  Greek  by  the  range  and  the  limits 
of  his  personal  predilections.     Even  about  the  Galatian  cities 


VIII.    Conclusion 


he  has  not  very  much  to  relate  that  is  detailed  or  pictur- 
esque. But  the  inauguration  of  the  Galatian  work  at  Pisidian 
Antioch  and  the  scenes  at  Lystra  are  in  the  best  style  of  his 
narrative,  where  every  word  is  addressed  to  the  eye  as  well 
as  to  the  mind,  A  study  of  the  Aegean  cities  would  be  the 
fitting  completion  of  the  book  ;  but  that  task  would  need 
another  volume. 

Incidentally,  one  must  ask  whether  the  contrast  between 
the  slightness  and  vagueness  of  the  Syrian  and  Cilician 
history,  and  the  fulness  and  copiousness  of  detail  in  the 
Aegean  lands  and  waters,  which  were  familiar  to  Luke,  does 
not  prove  that  he  had  no  personal  knowledge  of  Syria  and 
of  Cilicia.  In  regard  to  an  ordinary  author,  the  inference 
would  be  unhesitatingly  drawn.  Why  not  in  regard  to 
Luke? 

Finally,  some  inferences  will  be  drawn  in  the  concluding 
part  as  to  the  influence  of  the  Hellenic  city  life  on  Paul's 
personal  character. 


PART  11. 

TARSUS. 


TARSUS. 

§  I.     Introduction. 

In  the  introductory  verses  of  his  Letter  to  the  Galatians — 
that  wonderful  preface  to  the  most  remarkable  letter  that 
ever  was  written — St.  Paul  <^ives  an  historical  sketch  of  his 
own  life,  as  he  looked  back  on  it  with  the  experience  of  a 
lifetime  and  the  insight  of  a  thoroughly  reasoned  religion 
to  direct  and  intensify  his  visipn.  He  describes  the  chief 
stages  in  his  life  from  its  beginning.  What  had  been  mis- 
guided and  ignorant  almost  sinks  out  of  view :  he  re- 
members only  the  steps  by  which  his  knowledge  of  truth 
and  his  insight  into  the  real  nature  of  the  world  had  grown. 
The  many  years  in  which  he  had  been  a  leader  and  chief 
among  the  Jews,  with  his  mind  shut  up  within  the  circle 
of  Jewish  ideas  and  aspirations,  are  summed  up  in  a  brief 
sentence  ;  and  he  passes  on  to  the  epoch-making  event  in 
his  career,  the  real  beginning  of  his  life,  "  when  it  was  the 
good  pleasure  of  God,  who  separated  me,  even  from  my 
mother's  womb,  and  called  me  through  His  grace  to  reveal 
His  Son  in  me,  that  I  might  preach  Him  among  the 
Gentiles  ". 

It  is  a  widely  spread  view  that  in  these  words  the  Apostle 
is  merely  expressing  the  infinite  power  with  which  God 
chooses  His  instruments  where  He  will,  selecting  persons 
even  the  most  unlikely  and  apparently  unprepared  and 
unsuited  to  be  His  ministers,  and  putting  into  them  the 

(85) 


86  II.    Tarsus 

power  to  execute  His  will.  But  such  an  interpretation  is 
inadequate  and  far  from  complete.  It  is  true  that  here,  as 
everywhere,  Paul  lays  the  strongest  emphasis  on  the  limit- 
less power  with  which  God  selects  His  agents  and  in 
struments ;  but  neither  here  nor  anywhere  else  does  hr. 
represent  this  power  as  being  used  in  an  arbitrary  fashion, 
of  which  man  cannot  understand  the  reasons  or  the  method. 
The  choice  of  himself  was  the  final  execution  of  a  design 
which  had  been  long  maturing  in  the  purpose  of  God,  and 
which  was  worked  out  step  by  step  in  the  process  of  events. 
Already  before  his  birth  Paul  had  been  chosen  and  set 
apart  as  the  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles ;  and,  when  the  proper 
moment  had  arrived,  the  revelation  took  place,  and  the 
design  of  God  was  made  consciously  present  in  the  mind 
and  heart  of  the  man.  It  was  not  a  sudden  and  incalculable 
choice  of  a  human  instrument.  It  was  the  consummation 
of  a  process  of  selection  and  preparation  which  had  begun 
before  the  man  was  born,  but  of  which  he  had  at  first  been 
wholly  unconscious — so  unconscious  that  he  had  spent  his 
energy  in  fighting  vainly  against  its  compelling  power. 
Only  in  later  time,  as  he  reviewed  his  life,  he  could  see  the 
preparatory  stages  in  the  process,  beginning  before  his 
birth ;  the  purpose  of  God  had  matured  its  design  by  the 
selection  through  a  long  period  of  means  useful  to  the 
ultimate  end. 

The  conception  is  more  Greek  than  Hebrew.  A  purely 
Jewish  mind  would  have  been  content  to  emphasise  the  in- 
finite power  of  God,  who  chooses  an  instrument  for  His  pur- 
poses wherever  He  will.  It  is  characteristic  of  the  Greek 
education  not  to  be  content  with  this  almost  fatalistic  con- 
ception, but  to  scrutinise  the  manner  and  the  steps  by  which 
the  Divine  purpose  works  itself  out.     The  Greek  mind  re- 


I.   Introduction  Zj 


gards  the  evolution  of  the  will  of  God  as  a  process  which 
takes  place  under  the  conditions  of  space  and  time,  i.e.,  as 
a  process  of  history.  We  see  this  idea  running  through 
Greek  literature ;  and  in  the  same  way  as  the  action  of  the 
Iliad  presents  itself  to  Homer  as  the  series  of  events  by 
which  "  the  counsel  of  Zeus  wrought  out  its  accomplish- 
ment"  (see  Part  I.,  §  IV.),  so  Paul  conceives  the  counsel  of 
God  working  out  its  accomplishment  in  the  circumstances 
of  his  birth. 

If  we  attempt  to  interpret  his  mystic  religious  statement 
in  the  language  of  history,  it  means  that  the  family,  the 
surroundings,  and  the  education  of  Paul  had  been  selected 
with  the  perfection  of  a  Divine  purpose  to  make  him  fit  to 
be  what  he  was  designed  to  be,  the  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles. 
There  was  one  nation,  one  family  and  one  city,  out  of  which 
the  Apostle  must  arise.  The  nation  was  the  Jewish ;  but 
the  family  was  not  Palestinian,  it  was  Tarsian.  Only  "a 
Hebrew  sprung  from  Hebrews  "  could  be  the  Apostle  of  the 
perfected  Judaic  faith  ;  but  he  must  be  born  and  brought 
up  in  childhood  among  the  Gentiles,  a  citizen  of  a  Gentile 
city,  and  a  member  of  that  conquering  aristocracy  of  Romans 
which  ruled  all  the  cities  of  the  Mediterranean  world.  The 
Apostle  to  the  Gentiles  must  be  a  Jew,  a  Tarsian  citizen, 
and  at  the  same  time  a  Roman.  If  that  be  not  the  mean- 
ing of  Paul's  words,  the  historian  may  abandon  altogether 
the  task  of  interpieting  them,  for  they  cease  to  have  any 
historical  application.  But  his  words,  here  and  everywhere, 
are  instinct  and  alive  with  historical  force.  Every  sentence 
is  a  summary  of  historical  development.  But  Paul  sees  and 
speaks  on  the  plane  of  eternal  truth ;  and  the  historian  has 
to  render  his  words,  only  half  seeing,  half  understanding 
them,  "with  stammering  lips  and  insufficient  sound,"  into 


88  1 1.    Tarsus 

those  which  may  describe  the  steps  of  that  development  as 
they  are  conditioned  by  time  in  the  process  of  history. 

Tarsus  was  the  city  which  should  produce  the  Apostle  to 
the  Gentiles,  Why  was  that  city  chosen  ?  Again  we  must 
recognise  that  the  choice  was  no  arbitrary  selection  of  an 
unlikely  and  unsuitable  place.  Tarsus  was,  through  its 
nature  and  circumstances,  the  proper  city.  That  it  was 
the  one  suitable  place  has  been  borne  in  on  the  present 
writer  during  long  study  of  the  conditions  of  society  and 
the  geographical  environment  of  the  Cilician  land  and  cities. 
It  was  only  after  the  observation  of  this  remarkable  adapta- 
tion had  gradually  fixed  itself  in  his  mind,  taken  root  there, 
and  made  for  itself  definite  expression  in  language,  that  he 
found  the  same  thought  fully  expressed  in  the  words  of 
Paul  himself.  In  the  Historical  Commentary  on  the  Epistle 
to  the  GalatianSy  those  words  were  left  by  the  writer  un- 
noticed and  unexplained,  because  they  were  to  him  still 
uncomprehended  and  obscure.  Now  they  appear  full  of 
light  and  historical  meaning. 

Wherein  lay  the  peculiar  suitability  of  Tarsus  to  educate 
and  mould  the  mind  of  him  who  should  in  due  time  make 
the  religion  of  the  Jewish  race  intelligible  to  the  Graeco- 
Roman  world,  and  should  be 'able  to  raise  that  world  up  to 
the  moral  level  of  the  Hebrew  people  and  the  spiritual  level 
of  ability  to  sympathise  with  the  Hebrew  religion  in  its 
perfected  stage?  It  lay  in  the  fact  that  Tarsus  was  the 
city  whose  institutions  best  and  most  completely  united  the 
oriental  and  the  western  character.  When  Greece  went 
forth  under  Alexander  the  Great  to  conquer  the  East,  the 
union  of  oriental  and  occidental  was  attempted  in  every  city 
of  western  Asia.  That  is  the  most  remarkable  and  inter- 
esting feature  of  Hellenistic  history  in  the  Grseco-Asiatic 


I.   Introduction  89 


kingdoms  and  cities.^  But  none  of  those  cities,  though  all 
were  deeply  affected  in  varying  degrees  by  their  Asiatic 
surroundings  and  the  Asiatic  element  in  their  populations, 
seems  to  have  been  so  successful  as  Tarsus  in  establishing  a 
fairly  harmonious  balance  between  the  two  elements.  Not 
that  even  in  Tarsus  the  union  was  perfect :  that  was  im- 
possible so  long  as  the  religions  of  the  two  elements  were 
inharmonious  and  mutually  hostile.  But  the  Tarsian  state 
was  more  successful  than  any  other  of  the  great  cities  of 
that  time  in  producing  an  amalgamated  society,  in  which  the 
oriental  and  the  occidental  spirit  in  unison  attained  in  some 
degree  to  a  higher  plane  of  thought  and  action.  In  others 
the  Greek  spirit,  which  was  always  "anti-semi tic,"  was  too 
strong  and  too  resolutely  bent  on  attaining  supremacy  and 
crushing  out  all  opposition.  In  Tarsus  the  Greek  qualities 
and  powers  were  used  and  guided  by  a  society  which  was, 
on  the  whole,  more  Asiatic  in  character. 

With  this  idea  in  our  mind,  we  proceed  to  study  the 
character  and  the  social  conditions  of  the  city  of  Tarsus. 
It  would  be  vain  and  profitless  to  study  the  city  simply  as 
it  was  in  the  childhood  of  Paul.  We  can  understand  its 
character  and  influence  at  that  period  only  by  studying  its 
development  and  the  law  of  its  growth.  How  had  it  been 
formed  into  its  condition  at  the  Christian  era  ?  What 
elements  were  there  in  its  population  ?  What  fortunes  had 
befallen  the  people  and  moulded  them  already  before  their 
birth  ?  What  influences  of  sea  and  air,  of  plain  and 
mountain,  of  intercourse  and  warfare  with  others,  had 
through  many  generations  affected  their  nature  and  deter- 
mined their  character  ?  ^ 

The  attempt  to  put  together  a  picture  of  Tarsus  and  its 
people  in  the  first  century  after  Christ  would  be  entirely 


90  II.    Tarsus 

vain,  owing  to  the  paucity  of  information,  were  it  not  for 
the  intensity  of  municipal  patriotism  among  the  citizens  of 
an  ancient  city.  In  modern  times  that  character  is  not 
sufficiently  remembered  by  many  scholars,  who  are  misled 
by  the  modern  facts.  In  most  Scottish  cities  of  the  present 
day  knowledge  of,  and  interest  in,  their  early  history  belong 
only  to  a  few  antiquaries :  the  mass  of  the  citizens  know 
and  care  nought  about  such  matters.  In  Aberdeen,  for 
example,  the  speaker  in  the  Town  Council,  who  wishes  to 
persuade  his  audience,  does  not  quote  early  history ;  if  he 
were  to  begin  a  speech  by  appealing  to  his  hearers'  pride 
in  "the  Red  Harlaw,"  some  would  hardly  know  what  he 
meant,  others  would  regard  him  as  an  amiable  enthusiast 
whose  opinion  about  present  business  could  be  of  no  possible 
value.  Patriotism  is  far  from  weak  in  the  heart  of  such 
citizens,  though  they  are  a  little  ashamed  of  manifesting  it 
outwardly,  and  suspicious  of,  or  amused  by,  those  who  show 
it  more  openly  ;  but  their  patriotism  is  mainly  for  their 
country  and  their  race,  not  for  their  own  town. 

But  to  the  ancient  Greek  citizen  his  city  absorbed  all  his 
patriotism.  His  city,  not  his  country  as  a  whole,  was  his 
"  fatherland  "  (yet  see  p.  46).  He  was  keenly  interested  in 
its  past,  and  he  actively  participated  in  managing  its  present 
government,  A  citizen  who  was  not  active  and  interested 
in  his  own  State  was  disliked  and  contemned  in  general 
opinion  ;  and  the  unwillingness  of  the  early  Christians  to 
perform  the  religious  acts  required  in  all  political  duties, 
and  their  consequent  abstention  from  politics,  intensified  the 
disapproval  which  the  pagan  mob  felt  for  them.  The  patriot- 
ism of  the  ordinary  citizen  gained  intensity  through  the 
narrowness  of  its  scope.  All  that  his  patriotism  embraced 
was  constantly  present  to  his  senses,  and  forced  every  day 


I.   Introduction  9 1 


and  every  hour  on  his  attention.  He  could  not  get  away 
from  its  claims.  It  surrounded  him  from  infancy,  educated 
him  in  boyhood,  and  opened  to  him  all  his  opportunities  of 
activity  in  manhood.  It  was  to  a  large  extent  co-extensive 
with,  and  inseparable  from,  his  religion  ;  in  fact,  the  true 
Greek  theory  was  that  religion  should  be  entirely  co-ex- 
tensive with  patriotism  ;  but  human  nature  was  too  strong 
for  theory,  and  it  was  impossible  to  restrict  a  man's  religion 
witliin  the  circle  of  his  duties  towards  the  State,  though  the 
Greek  view  tended  to  regard  as  superstition  all  that  lay 
outside  of,  and  too  deep  for,  that  circle. 

Only  by  an  effort  can  the  modern  mind  begin  to  appre- 
ciate how  strong  and  real  was  the  influence  that  the  more 
striking  facts  of  past  histor}-,  and  its  half-religious,  half- 
political  legends,  exerted  on  the  ancient  citizen.  These 
were  to  him  present  and  real  influences,  guiding  his  action 
and  moulding  his  mind :  they  formed  the  standard  to 
which  the  orators  and  philosophers,  who  wished  to  move 
the  mind  of  the  citizens,  must  accommodate  their  words; 
and  each  orator  selected  from  past  history  with  such  skill 
as  he  possessed  the  points  suitable  for  his  own  purposes. 
One  single  example  will  serve  to  show  the  enormous  in- 
fluence of  historical  legend  on  the  ancient  cities.  It  was 
probably  a  Greek  poet  of  Sicily  who  invented  in  the  sixth 
century  a  connection  between  ancient  Greek  history  and 
the  young  city  of  Rome,  already  powerful  under  its  kings; 
for  Greek  views  demanded  that  any  strong  external  State 
should  be  brought  into  relations  with  old  Greece.  Thus 
arose  the  fancy  that  Rome  was  founded  by  Trojan  refugees, 
fleeing  from  their  city  when  Agamemnon  captured  and 
burned  it.  Yet  this  utterly  groundless  and  non-Roman 
idea  became  gradually  accepted  by  Rome  herself;  it  was 


92  II.    Tarsus 

used  as  an  incident  in  the  great  national  historical  epics  of 
Naevius  and    Ennius,  and    finally  was  made   the   plot  of 
Virgil's   Aeneid,    the   most   perfect    literary   expression   of 
Roman  sentiment  and  Roman  pride.      It  won  its  way  to 
the  Roman  mind,  though  attributing  a  foreign  origin  and 
a  fugitive  ancestry  to  their  people,  mainly  because  it  was 
a  convenient  political  instrument.     The  ancient  mind  re- 
quired, and  always  found  or  invented,  a  justification  in  past 
history  and  religion  for  all  political  action  ;  and,  when  the 
Romans  began  to  exercise  influence  in  the   Greek  world, 
they  justified  their  interference  by  their  right,  guaranteed 
by  old  Greek  authors,  to  carry  on  to  completion  the  his- 
torical drama  which  had  begun  with  the  war  of  Troy  and 
their  own  expulsion  by  the  Greeks.     On  this  ground  they 
justified  their  interposition  to  protect  their  kindred  in  New 
Ilium  against  the  Graeco-Syrian  king  early  in  the  third  cen- 
tury (282  B.C.).    Legend,  half-religious,  half-political,  is  here 
exhibited  as  a  powerful  and  vital  force  in  the  ancient  mind. 
Popular  belief  and  legends  with  regard  to  the  foundation 
and  past  history  of  a  Hellenic  city  are,  therefore,  important 
as  a  means  of  understanding  the  mind  of  the  people,  who 
believed  and  circulated  them.    The  example  just  given  shows 
that  the  value  of  the  evidence  is  entirely  unconnected  with 
historical  truth.     What  the  citizens  were  saying  at  any  time 
about  their  own  past  reveals  what  was  their  mind  about 
present  matters  at  that  time,  what  they  prided  themselves 
on,  what  they  claimed  to  be,  what  were  the  topics  which 
might  be  appealed  to  by  orators  and  teachers  desirous  of 
influencing  their  action.     As  at  Rome,  so  in  Tarsus  and 
Iconium  and  other  Hellenic  cities,  totally  different  and  in- 
consistent legends  circulated  with  regard  to  their  origin  : 
these  tales  came  into  existence  at  different  times,  in  diff"ereat 


II.    The  Situation  of  Tarsus  93 


states  of  feeling,  and  among  different  constituent  elements 
in  the  complicated  fabric  of  municipal  society  and  politics. 

§  II.  The  Situation  of  Tarsus. 
Tarsus  (which  still  bears  its  ancient  name  slightly  modi- 
fied, Tersous)  is  situated  in  the  Cilician  plain,  70  to  80  feet 
above  sea  level,  and  about  ten  miles  from  the  southern  coast. 
Behind  it  towards  the  north,  fully  two  miles  distant,  the 
hills  begin  to  rise  gently  from  the  level  plain;  and  they 
extend  back  in  undulating  and  gently  swelling  ridges,  inter- 
sected by  deep  water  channels,  until  they  lean  against  the 
vast  and  lofty  range  of  Taurus,  about  thirty  miles  distant 

to  the  north. 

Cilicia  lies  between  Taurus  and  the  sea,  and  comprises 
the  level  sea  plain,  the  undulating  alluvial  hills,  and  the 
front  of  the  ridge  of  Taurus.  The  bounds  on  the  north 
varied  in  different  periods  of  history.  In  the  Roman  time 
(with  which  we  are  here  chiefly  concerned)  they  were  fixed 
high  up  on  the  face  of  Taurus,  about  500  feet  below  the 
summit  of  the  front  ridge.'-'*  At  this  point,  and  not  at  the 
actual  summit,  is  the  natural  geographical  boundary  be- 
tween the  Cilician  land,  steamy  with  the  moist  heat  of  its 
well-watered  soil,  and  the  broad,  lofty  and  inclement  moun- 
tain region  of  Taurus,  backed  by  the  high  central  plateau  of 
Anatolia;  and  therefore  it  may  rightly  be  regarded  as  the 
true  frontier  of  the  country.  The  exact  point  is  indicated 
by  inscriptions  on  the  rock  walls  of  the  narrow  pass  which 
is  famous  in  history  under  the  name  of  the  "  Cilician 
Gates".      The   situation    will   be  more   fully  described   in 

§  IV. 

The  combination   of  these   three  kinds  of  country  was 
highly  advantageous  to  the  Cilician  cities  and  people.     The 


94  II-    Tarsus 

cities,  Tarsus  and  the  rest,  were  situated  in  the  low  plains, 
only  a  few  feet  above  sea  level.  The  moist  heat  of  the 
fertile  soil  and  oppressive  atmosphere  would  have  been  un- 
favourable to  vigorous  municipal  or  commercial  life.  But 
the  considerable  extent  of  undulating  ground,  often  very 
fertile  and  generally  well  wooded  at  the  present  time, 
which  intervened  as  foot-hills  between  the  sea  plain  and  the 
Taurus  mountains,  offered  a  far  more  pleasant  and  healthy 
abode  during  the  summer  heat ;  while  the  high  glens  and 
plateaus  of  Taurus  were  admirable  sanatoria. 

Those  foot-hills,  therefore,  were  a  valuable  part  of 
Tarsian  territory,  and  really  essential  to  its  prosperity ; 
and  the  remains  of  ancient  life  show  that  the  oppor- 
tunity was  thoroughly  used  by  the  people.  There  is,  in 
truth,  a  second  Tarsus  on  the  hills,  about  nine  to  twelve 
miles  north  of  the  city  proper,  probably  a  town  which  was 
partly  used  for  summer  residence,  but  still  a  large  and 
strong  town  with  regular  fortifications  on  a  great  scale, 
permanently  occupied  by  a  considerable  population — indeed 
a  much  stronger  city  than  Tarsus  on  the  level  plain,  which 
was  devoid  of  any  proper  acropolis  (as  Dion  ChrysosLom 
mentions). 

These  ruins,  which  extend  westwards  from  the  north 
road  for  several  miles  up  to  the  deep  gorge  of  the  river 
Cydnus,  are  evidently  mainly  Roman  ;  and  the  very  name 
which  was  given  to  them  in  the  third  century  can  be  deter- 
mined. On  the  west  edge  of  the  ruins  the  Roman  road 
leading  north  from  Tarsus  to  the  Cilician  Gates  is  spanned 
by  a  triumphal  arch,  s'yled  with  boastfulness  characteristic 
of  the  Tarsians  (see  §  XXII.)  by  the  Latin  term  quadrigce, 
though  probably  no  ibur-horse  car  was  ever  placed  upon 
it.      This  monument  gave  its  name  to  the  whole  district 


II.    The  Situation  of  Tarsus  95 

around ;  and  the  name  appears  in  Greek  as  Kodrigai  on 
coins  of  Tarsus,  struck  about  A.D.  200.  From  these  coins  we 
learn  that  games-  of  the  Olympian  fashion  were  celebrated 
in  honour  of  the  Emperor  Severus  at  Kodrigai,  which  is 
called  the  "  Boundaiy  of  the  Cilicians,"  and  was  therefore 
on  the  north  side  of  Tarsus  towards  the  Cilician  Gates. 
Severus  had  marched  south  into  Cilicia  along  the  road  from 
the  Gates,  and  we  may  presume  that  the  triumphal  arch 
was  erected  at  the  place  where  the  road  approached  the 
town.  On  the  plateau  near  the  arch  games  might  well  have 
been  held,  especially  during  the  heat  of  summer. 

This  upper  town  formed  a  really  important  factor  in 
Tarsian  history.  It  was  mainly  instrumental  in  maintain- 
ing unimpaired  through  many  centuries  the  vigour  and 
energy  of  the  citizens.  Tarsus,  lying  low  in  the  plain, 
sheltered  by  Taurus  from  the  invigorating  northerly  breezes, 
which  are  so  important  in  maintaining  the  salubrity  of 
Anatolia,  would  inevitably  be  a  relaxing  and  enervating 
phce  ;  but  the  close  neighbourhood  of  the  hills  brought  an 
invigorating  residence  within  easy  reach  of  the  mass  of  the 
population. 

The  healthy  condition  of  ancient  Greek  cities  generally 
was  due  partly  to  the  water  supply,  partly  to  the  cleanli- 
ness which  was  a  matter  of  religious  duty,  enforced  by  the 
gods  of  the  streets  whose  images  stood  there,  and  partly  to 
the  love  of  the  people  for  country  residence  and  for  outdoor 
life.  That,  in  choosing  the  sites  of  the  great  Greek  cities 
of  Asia,  much  attention  was  paid  to  the  character  of  the 
atmosphere  and  the  neighbourhood  of  invigorating  high 
ground,  is  evident  to  all  who  have  seen  and  noted  their 
situation.  The  population  of  Asia  Minor  is,  and  has  pro- 
bably always   been,    appreciative   of  this  character.     The 


96  II.    Tarsus 

natives  even  now,  unobservant  and  resigned  and  careless  as 
they  are,  will  often  distinguish  between  the  invigorating 
atmosphere  of  one  town  and  the  oppressive,  heavy  air  of 
another  at  no  great  distance  in  a  worse  situation. 

In  respect  of  the  danger  of  malaria  the  case  of  Tarsus 
was  similar  to  that  of  Perga,  and  even  worse.  Perga  stood 
on  a  slightly  elevated  plateau  by  the  river:  Tarsus  lay  on 
the  dead  level  plain,  only  a  few  feet  above  the  lowest  level 
of  the  river  Cydnus,  and  exposed  to  inundation  as  soon  as 
the  water  rose  in  flood.  Both  are  sheltered  in  the  same  way 
by  the  northern  mountains  ;  both  face  the  sea  and  the  sun. 
In  my  Church  in  the  Roman  Ejupire,  p.  62  f.,  this  character 
of  Perga  is  described.  A  distinguished  French  scholar  has 
denied  that  Perga  could  have  been  exposed  to  malaria,  on 
the  ground  that  the  thorough  cultivation  of  the  soil  in 
ancient  times  must  have  made  it  healthy.  It  is  all  a  ques- 
tion of  degree.  Cultivation  will  do  much  to  diminish  the 
malarious  character  of  a  district ;  but  the  Pamphylian  soil 
was  so  fertile  because  it  is  by  nature  abundantly  moist. 
Irrigation,  where  needed,  is  easy.  Wherever  this  abundant 
moisture  and  fertility  characterise  the  sea-plain  in  this  ex- 
tremely hot  country,  fever  is  prevalent  and  the  climate  is 
depressing,  while  insect  pests  make  human  life  wretched 
for  a  considerable  part  of  the  year.  The  bad  effect  is 
exaggerated  by  neglect  and  the  increase  of  marshes ;  but 
it  is  unavoidable  and  only  partially  curable. 

Now,  since  the  country  south  of  Tarsus  has  been  allowed 
to  relapse  into  its  primitive  state  of  marsh,  the  climate  of 
the  city  is  doubtless  more  oppressive  and  enervating  than 
it  was  in  the  Roman  time,  when  the  marshes  had  all  been 
drained  and  the  country  was  entirely  under  cultivation. 
But,  at  the  best,  the  situation  of  Tarsus  must  always  have 


:_]L_. 


Two   views  of  a  Triumphal   Arch  on  the  Roman   Road,   twelve  miles  north  of 

Tarsus:    from    the    south.      (A    view    from    the    north    is    given    in    Pauline    and 

Other   Studies,    Plate    XIII.) 


II.    The  Situation  of  Tarsus  97 

made  the  climate  relaxing ;  and  the  city  could  not  have 
retained  the  vigour  that  ma''e  its  citizens  widely  famous  in 
the  ancient  world,  without  the  hill  town  or  hill  residence  so 
close  at  hand,  which  prevented  the  degeneration  of  the 
Tarsian  spirit  through  many  centuries. 

But  this  hill  town  was  not  a  place  of  summer  residence 
only.  It  seems  to  have  grown  from  a  mere  wayside  ^ 
station  and  an  open  summer  resort  into  a  real  fortified  city, 
a  second  Tarsus.  The  fortifications  were  probably  con- 
structed during  the  decay  of  the  Roman  Empire,  when 
invasions  were  a  constant  danger,  and  a  stronger  defence 
than  the  city  of  the  plain  was  required.  It  seems  possible 
that  this  hill  town  is  the  Tarsus  which  the  Bordeaux  Pilgrim 
mentions,  twenty-four  Roman  miles  south  of  the  Cilician 
Gates.  This  is  far  too  short  for  the  distance  between  the 
Gates  and  the  city  of  the  plain.  Perhaps  the  Pilgrim 
stopped  at  the  hill  town,  while  Tarsus  on  the  plain  decayed 
in  the  wars,  and  was  rebuilt  by  Haroun-al-Rashid.* 

Tarsus  was  certainly  a  very  large  city  in  the  Roman  times. 
The  information  of  intelligent  and  observant  residents  is 
that,  wherever  you  dig,  from  the  hills  two  miles  north  of 
the  present  town  to  the  lake  and  marsh  five  or  six  miles 
south,  you  come  upon  remains  of  the  ancient  city.  With 
the  residents  on  the  hills,  the  population  of  the  Tarsian 
State  is  likely  to  have  been  not  less  than  half  a  million. 
Thus  it  was,  as  Basil  describes  it,  a  metropolis  for  three 
provinces,  a  centre  of  communication  for  Cilicia,  Cappa- 
docia,  and  Assyria. 

The  fortunes  and  history  of  Tarsus  were  determined  by 
three  geographical  conditions:  (i)  its  relation  to  the  rest 
of  the  Cilician  plain,  (2)  its  connection  through  the  river 
Cydnus  with  the  sea,  and  (3)  its  position  commanding  the 


98  II.    Tarsus 

end  of  the  principal  pass  across  the  Taurus  mountains  to 
the  central  plateau  and  the  western  and  northern  parts  of 
Anatolia,  one  of  the  great  routes  which  have  determined 
the  history  of  the  Mediterranean  world,  the  pass  of  the 
Cilician  Gates. 

§  III.    Tarsus  and  the  Plain  of  Cilicia. 

The  country  of  Cilicia  is,  roughly  speaking,  triangular  in 
shape,  the  apex  on  the  north-east  being  formed  by  its 
mighty  boundary  mountains,  Amanus,  running  due  south 
and  separating  Cilicia  from  Syria  and  Commagene,  and 
Taurus  diverging  to  the  south-west  and  dividing  the  country 
from  Cappadocia  and  Lycaonia.  Those  two  great  mountain 
wails  approach  close  to  the  sea,  which  forms  the  third  side 
of  the  Cilician  triangle. 

If  we  neglect  as  less  important  two  narrow  strips  of  coast 
land  at  the  eastern  and  western  ends  of  Cilicia,  and  if  we  leave 
also  out  of  count  the  foot-hills  that  lie  against  the  mountains 
and  make  a  full  half  of  the  whole  land,  Cilicia  consists  of 
two  very  rich  plains,  the  upper  or  eastern,  which  is  divided 
from  the  sea  by  a  ridge  of  hills  (Djebel-Nur),  and  the  lower 
or  western,  which  is  in  the  strictest  sense  a  maritime  plain. 
The  eastern  plain  is  the  valley  of  the  river  Pyramus.  The 
western  is  the  valley  of  three  rivers,  the  lowest  course  of 
the  Pyramus,  the  Sarus,  and  the  Cydnus ;  ^  and  on  the  three 
rivers  were  situated  the  three  great  cities,  Mallos  on  the 
Pyramus,  Adana  on  the  Sarus,  and  Tarsus  on  the  Cydnus. 
The  mutual  relations  and  rivalries  of  these  three  cities  have 
determined  the  history  of  the  maritime  plain  of  Cilicia. 

Another  side  of  Cilician  life,  the  opposition  between  the 
western  plain  with  its  capital  Tarsus  and  the  eastern  plain 
with  its  capital  Anazarba,  will  not  concern  us  much  the  in 


Jonas  Pillar  and  the   Cilician    Sea,   near   Issus.     The  slope   of   Djebel   Nur   rises   on    the  right. 


HI.    Tarsus  and  the  Plain  of  Cilicia  99 

present  study.  It  was  an  important  feature  of  the  later 
Roman  period,  the  second  and  following  centuries  after 
Christ ;  but  it  exercised  no  appreciable  influence  in  deter- 
mining the  character  of  the  Pauline  Tarsus,  with  which  we 
are  now  engaged. 

The  west  Cilician  plain  has  been  gradually  won  from  the 
sea  in  the  course  of  ages.  It  was  formed  mainly  by  the 
great  river  Sarus,  which  bears  through  the  centre  of  the  plain 
to  the  sea  the  united  waters  of  two  great  rivers  of  the 
plateau,  the  Karmalas  and  the  Sarus  proper.  The  forma- 
tion of  the  plain  has  probably  been  assisted  by  several 
successive  slight  elevations  of  the  level  of  the  land  (shown 
by  a  succession  of  old  sea  beaches,  which  mark  out  the 
shape  of  the  former  gulf,  now  become  the  western  plain); 
but,  mainly,  the  plain  has  been  deposited  by  the  Sarus. 
This  plain,  like  the  country  as  a  whole,  is  triangular  in 
shape,  with  the  sea  as  its  base,  and  its  apex  in  a  recess  of 
the  hills.  It  contains  about  800  square  miles  of  arable  land, 
with  a  strip  of  sand-hills  and  lagoons  about  two  to  three 
miles  wide  along  the  coast. 

At  the  apex  of  the  plain,  on  the  north,  the  river  Sarus 
enters  this  lower  plain,  and  winds  its  circuitous  way  in  a 
great  sweep  towards  the  sea,  which  it  now  reaches  very  near 
the  mouth  of  the  Cydnus  at  the  western  edge  of  the  plain. 
At  an  early  period  it  probably  joined  the  Pyramus,  which, 
entering  the  western  plain  by  a  narrow  pass  between  the 
Taurus  foot-hills  and  the  Djebel-Nur,  keeps  close  at  the 
present  day  to  the  base  of  the  latter,  and  winds  back  to- 
wards the  sea,  on  the  extreme  eastern  limit  of  the  plain." 
But  the  Sarus  deserted  that  old  junction  centuries  before 
the  time  of  Christ,  and  formed  its  own  way  to  the  sea 
through  the  centre  of  the  plain.     It  probably  found  entrance 


lOO  II.    Tarsus 

to  the  sea  at  different  points  as  the  centuries  passed  by,  and 
its  mouth  is  now,  certainly,  much  further  west  than  it  was 
in  the  Pauline  period.  At  that  time  it  apparently  flowed 
not  directly  into  the  sea,  but  into  a  large  lagoon,  still  well 
marked,  about  nine  miles  east  of  the  mouth  of  the  Cydnus 
and  fifteen  miles  west  of  the  old  Pyramus  mouth.  This 
lagoon  was  half  divided  from  the  sea  by  a  bar  of  sand. 
Thus  the  Sarus  had  no  navigable  entrance  from  the  sea; 
and  a  city  situated  on  the  river  Sarus  could  have  no  direct 
maritime  connection.  Adana,  therefore,  the  city  on  the 
Sarus,  was  situated  far  up  the  river,  near  the  apex  of  the 
plain.  The  river  was  and  still  is  navigable  there,  but 
navigation  must  have  been  only  for  purposes  of  local  com- 
munication, not  of  Fea-going  traffic. 

Taking  into  consideration  the  foot-hills  as  well  as  the  sea 
plain,  we  see  that  Adana  lies  near  the  centre  of  Cilicia,  in  a 
very  favourable  situation  for  ruling  the  country  when  sea 
navigation  is  unimportant.  Hence  it  is  the  natural  capital 
of  the  country  under  Turkish  rule.  A  lofty  rocky  hill 
forms  an  excellent  and  strong  acropolis,  crowned  now  by 
the  buildings  of  the  American  Mission.  From  those  build- 
ings there  is  offered  a  wonderful  view  ;  on  the  south,  across 
the  apparently  limitless  level  plain,  the  sea  cannot  be  dis- 
tinguished ;  on  the  north  and  west  one  looks  over  the  lower 
foot-hills  to  the  long  snow-clad  wall  of  Taurus.  Eastwards 
the  view  is  almost  more  varied  and  impressive. 

From  Tarsus  no  such  view  can  be  got.  The  city  lies 
so  low  that  the  mountains  are  for  the  most  part  concealed 
behind  the  hills ;  and  there  is  no  rock  marked  enough  to 
serve  as  an  acropolis.  PI.  II.  shows  the  best  outlook.^ 
But  from  the  hills  a  few  miles  northward,  and  especially 
from  the  acropolis  of  the  hill  city,  a  marvellous  view  is  pre- 


III.    Tarsus  and  the  Plain  of  Cilicia        loi 

sented,  extending  along  the  mountain  walls  of  Taurus  and  of 
Amanus,  and  across  the  Gulf  of  Issus  to  the  Syrian  mountains 
and  the  promontory  behind  which  lie  Seleucia  and  Antioch. 

Adana  and  Tarsus  are  cities  of  inevitable  importance  ; 
and  both  retain  their  ancient  name  to  the  present  day. 
Mallos,  on  the  Pyramus,  has  lost  its  people  and  its  name. 
Its  very  site  is  still  unsettled  and  a  subject  of  controversy. 
It  owed  its  greatness  in  early  history  to  circumstances  that 
have  long  ceased  to  exist.  At  the  beginning  of  history  it 
stands  forth  as  the  principal  harbour  of  the  Cilician  land, 
and  the  chief  seat  of  Greek  influence  and  trade.  The  Pyra- 
mus then  offered  the  only  well-defined  river  entrance  on 
the  Cilician  coast  with  a  natural  harbour,  whereas  Tarsus 
had  to  make  its  harbour,  and  Adana  never  could  have 
enjoyed  easy  maritime  communication. 

As  was  necessary  in  primitive  times,  when  piracy  was  a 
never-ceasing  danger,  Mallos  was  built,  not  on  the  sea,  but 
some  way  up  the  river.  Strabo  mentions  that  it  stood  on  a 
hill,  and  thus  points  out  its  position,  for  there  is  only  one 
hill  near  the  mouth  of  the  Pyramus.  West  of  the  ancient 
mouth  and  east  of  the  modern  mouth  a  little  ridge  of  hills 
(now  called  Kara-Tash)^  rises  on  the  seashore.  This  ridge 
was  probably  once  an  island  in  the  Cilician  gulf,  and  after- 
wards it  formed  the  eastern  promontory  at  the  entrance  to 
the  gulf.  As  the  land  rose  and  the  sea  receded,  the  P}'ra- 
mus  passed  out  along  its  northern  and  western  base  into  the 
sea.  The  city  of  Mallos  was  situated  on  the  northern  slope 
of  the  hill,  away  from  the  sea  and  looking  towards  the  river 
In  this  situation,  one  understands  why  Scylax  regards  it  as 
an  inland  city,  up  the  river,  while  both  Strabo  and  the 
Stadiasmus  describe  it  as  belonging  to  the  coast,  and  Strabo 
pointedly  contrasts  it  with  the  inner  country. 


I02  II.    Tars2is 

The  river  Pyramus,  like  the  Sarus,  has  silted  up  its 
former  mouth,  and  now  flows  in  a  different  channel.  About 
twelve  or  fifteen  miles  above  the  ancient  mouth,  where  the 
old  course  turned  off  towards  south-west,  keeping  close 
along  the  northern  edge  of  the  Mallos  hills,  the  river  now 
bends  sharply  back  to  the  east  and  flows  into  the  bay  of 
Ayash  (the  ancient  Aigeai),  which  it  is  rapidly  filling  up 
with  the  soil  deposited  from  its  waters.  Accordingly  the 
site  of  Mallos  must  now  be  looked  for  on  the  western  side  of 
the  modern  river,  and  at  some  considerable  distance  from 
the  bank. 

Between  the  rivers  Cydnus  and  Pyramus  lies  the  famous 
Aleian  plain,  deposited  in  large  degree  by  the  river  Sarus 
which  flows  through  it  and  has  gradually  formed  it.  A 
plain  formed  in  this  way  must  in  an  earlier  stage  of  history 
have  been  a  succession  of  swamps  and  waste  land,  only  half 
won  from  the  sea,  with  the  Sarus  struggling  to  find  a  pain- 
ful and  devious  way  through  it.  Long  after  the  Pyramus 
had  found  a  well-defined  channel  down  past  the  site  of 
Mallos  to  the  coast,  the  Sarus  was  wending  its  difficult 
course  through  those  marshy  lowlands  towards  the  sea. 
Homer  has  preserved  for  us  in  the  fifth  book  of  the  Iliad 
the  memory  of  that  early  time,  when  he  relates  the  tale  of 
Bellerophon : 

When  at  last,  distracted  in  his  mind, 
Forsook  of  Heaven,  forsaking  humankind, 
Wide  o'er  the  Aleian  plain  he  chose  to  stray, 
A  long  forlorn  uncomfortable  way. 

This  writer  evidently  understood  the  Aleian  plain  to  be 
a  melancholy  waste,  untraversed  by  any  path,  uninhabited 
by  man,  a  scar  upon  the  smiling  face  of  the  land,  where  a 
melancholic  madman  might  "  wander  alone,  eating  his  own 


III.    Tarsus  and  the  Plain  of  Cilicia        103 

soul,  avoiding  the  paths  of  man  ".^  But  in  the  classical 
period  of  history  it  was  a  great  stretch  of  especially  fertile 
and  rich  land.  Strabo  distinguishes  the  Aleian  plain  from 
the  coast-land,  because  the  former  was  cultivated  and  rich, 
while  the  latter  was  mere  sand  and  lagoon  and  cane-brake. 
The  troops  of  Alexander  the  Great  were  able  to  march 
right  across  the  plain,  which  was  well  suited  for  the  move- 
ment of  cavalry  in  the  fourth  century  before  Christ  and 
doubtless  during  many  centuries  earlier. 

In  contrast  to  these  accounts  the  Homeric  lines  preserve 
a  true  memory  of  more  ancient  days,  brought  to  the  har- 
bours of  the  west  by  the  early  Greek  sailors  who  traded 
to  the  port  of  Mallos  ;  and  the  tale  probably  carries  us 
back  to  a  time  far  older  than  the  ninth  century  B.C.,  and 
opens  before  us  a  page  in  the  history  of  the  gradual  forma- 
tion of  the  central  Cilician  river  and  the  Cilician  plain. 
How  far  human  agency  co-operated  with  nature  by  defining 
and  embanking  the  river  channel  is  a  question  on  which 
proper  exploration  would  doubtless  throw  some  light. 
Those  great  engineering  operations  by  which  rivers  were 
regulated  and  marshes  were  drained,  as  e.g.^  the  Yang-tse- 
kiang,  the  Po,  the  Nile,  the  Boeotian  marsh  Copais,  and 
many  mountain  glens  in  Greece  and  Anatolia,  lie  far  back 
at  the  beginning  of  civilisation  in  the  southern  countries. 

The  Aleian  plain  was  divided  between  the  three  great 
cities  ;  but  undoubtedly  the  largest  part  belonged  to  Mallos. 
Hence  Mallos  is  probably  the  harbour  which  is  meant  by 
Herodotus,  vi.  95,  when  he  tells  that  the  great  army  sent 
by  Darius  against  Greece  in  490  B.C.  marched  to  the  Aleian 
plain  in  Cilicia  and  encamped  there,  until  the  fleet  arrived 
and  took  them  on  board. 

The  early  history  of  Tarsus  was  determined  by  competi- 


I04  II-    Tarsus 

tion  with  its  two  rivals.  It  outstripped  them  in  the  race 
at  last ;  but  Mallos  was  at  first  the  great  harbour  and  the 
principal  Greek  colony  of  Cilicia.  An  alliance  between 
Mallos  and  Adana  was  natural,  because  the  path  from 
Mallos  to  the  north  and  the  inner  plateau  lay  through 
Adana,  and  its  trade  was  dependent  on  the  friendship  of 
the  inland  city.  Each  had  much  to  gain  from  alliance 
with  the  other.  On  the  other  hand  the  interests  of  Tarsus 
were  opposed  to  both  Adana  and  Mallos.  Tarsus,  as  a 
harbour,  competed  with  the  latter,  and  as  commanding  its 
own  path  to  the  inner  plateau  it  competed  with  the  for- 
mer. This  struggle  for  superiority  continued  through  the 
Greek  period,  and  traces  of  it  remain  in  the  orations  which 
Dion  Chrysostom  delivered  at  Tarsus  in  the  beginning  of 
the  second  century  after  Christ.  But  Tarsus  grew  steadily 
greater  and  more  powerful,  while  its  two  rivals  seem  to 
have  finally  been  forced  to  accept  a  lower  rank,  leaving  the 
supremacy  of  the  western  plain  to  their  more  vigorous 
competitor. 

If  I  may  judge  from  the  holes  which  I  saw  in  the  ground 
here  and  there,  the  plain  near  Tarsus  consists  of  a  stratum 
of  rich  fertile  soil  resting  on  a  bottom  of  gravel  and  pebbles. 
The  stratum  of  soil  is  thin  at  the  edge  of  the  hills  on  the 
north  and  gets  deeper  as  one  goes  south  towards  the  sea. 
The  rivers  flow  on  the  gravel  and  pebbles.  Perhaps  the 
same  kind  of  formation  may  extend  over  the  whole  Aleian 
plain. 

It  is  sometimes  stated  that  the  ruins  of  the  ancient 
Tarsus  are  covered  by  the  silt  of  the  river  to  the  depth  of 
1 5  or  20  feet.  I  could  find  no  proof  that  any  recent  river 
deposit  overlies  the  old  level  of  the  city,  nor  that  the 
remains  of  ancient  life  are  covered  so  deep,  except  on  a 


IV.    Tarsus,  the  River  and  the  Sea         105 

sort  of  hill  or  mound  on  the  south-west  of  the  modern 
buildings,  which  seems  to  be  entirely  modern,  caused  by 
the  earth  accumulating  over  ancient  remains.  Such  a 
mound  always  tends  to  gather  over  an  uninhabited  site. 
But  in  the  inhabited  part  of  Tarsus  the  modern  level  seems 
not  to  be  more  than  a  few  feet  above  the  ancient.  This 
may  be  inferred  from  the  depth  at  which  the  pebble  and 
gravelly  bottom  is  struck  in  digging,  for  the  level  of 
this  bottom  has  probably  not  varied  since  the  overlving 
stratum  of  loam  was  deposited  in  the  geological  process  of 
formation. 

As  regards  the  command  of  a  large  extent  of  fertile 
territory,  Tarsus  though  well  equipped,  was  not  equal  to 
either  of  her  rivals.  The  superiority  which  she  ultimately 
achieved  over  them  was  due  to  other  causes. 

§  IV.    Tarsus,  the  River  and  the  Sea. 

The  glory  and  the  ornament  of  Tarsus  was  the  river  Cyd- 
nus,  which  flowed  through  the  middle  of  the  city.  Dion 
Chrysostom,  in  the  first  of  his  two  orations  delivered  at 
Tarsus  somewhere  about  A.D.  1 10,  makes  fun  of  the  pride 
and  affection  with  which  the  Tarsians  regarded  their  river ; 
they  loved  to  hear  from  strangers  the  praises  of  its  beauty 
and  of  the  clearness  of  its  water,  and  when  it  flowed  dark 
and  muddy,  they  anxiously  explained  to  visitors  the  reason. 
He  speaks  rather  depreciatingly  of  the  situation  and  natural 
surroundings  of  Tarsus,  and  declares  that  it  is  inferior  to 
many  cities  in  respect  of  river  and  climate  and  conformation 
of  land  and  sea  and  harbour  and  walls.^*  The  river,  which 
runs  clear  and  bright  among  the  hills,  soon  grows  muddy 
after  it  enters  the  rich  deep  soil  of  the  plain.  Dion  implies 
that  its  water  as  it  passed  through  the  city  was  ordinarily 


io6 


1 1.    Tarsus 


IV.    Tarsus,  the  River  and  the  Sea         107 


clear.  This  was  certainly  the  case.  In  its  short  course 
through  the  thin  soil  north  of  the  city  it  did  not  come  much 
in  contact  with  the  mud,  but  flowed  in  a  wide  gravelly  bed. 
Only  when  in  flood  did  it  carry  down  with  it  mud  and  soil, 
and  rush  through  the  city  in  a  dark  and  turbid  current. 
But  below  the  city,  where  the  soil  is  deeper,  it  soon  became 
laden  with  mud,  and  acquired  permanently  the  yellowish 
opaque  colour  of  the  Tiber  at  Rome. 

The  question  as  to  the  character  of  the  bed  of  the  Cydnus 
is  complicated  by  the  change  that  has  occurred  in  the  course 
of  the  river.  It  was  liable  to  inundation,  as  it  drained  a 
large  extent  of  hill  and  mountain  country,  down  which  its 
numerous  feeders  rushed  rapidly  after  heavy  rain  and  poured 
a  sudden  flood  into  the  city.  Probably  the  danger  was 
guarded  against  during  the  most  prosperous  period  of  Tarsian 
history  by  operations  facilitating  the  outflow.  At  least  Dion, 
while  he  refers  to  the  turbid  colour  of  the  river  in  flood, 
does  not  mention  the  danger  of  inundation  in  his  very 
candid  and  searching  enumeration  of  the  natural  defects 
of  the  city.  Afterwards  less  care  was  shown  in  keeping 
the  channel  clear  and  open,  and  in  the  time  of  Justinian, 
between  527  and  563  A.D.,  a  flood  did  so  much  harm  to  the 
city,  that  the  Emperor  formed  a  new  channel  in  which  the 
river  now  runs.  Probably  this  channel  was  intended  merely 
to  divert  the  superabundant  water,  for  the  purpose  of  keeping 
the  level  within  the  city  uniform  and  safe.  But  the  result 
was  that,  in  the  neglectful  times  which  followed,  the  channel 
within  the  city  gradually  became  choked,  and  the  whole 
body  of  water  was  diverted  into  the  new  course.  It  was 
not  till  about  the  fourteenth  or  fifteenth  century  that  the 
process  was  completed.  Earlier  travellers  saw  the  river 
flowing  in  part  through  the  city,  in  which  its  channel  can 


io8  II.    Tarsus 

still  be  traced  (especially  in  the  southern  parts)  by  the  de- 
pression in  the  level,  and  by  remains  of  the  embankments 
and  bridges  seen  by  living  witnesses  during  excavations  for 
building  purposes.  The  modern  watercourse  on  the  west 
side  of  the  town,  often  mistaken  by  travellers  for  the  original 
bed  of  the  river,  is  wholly  artificial  and  quite  distinct  from 
the  old  channel  (as  can  be  seen  by  following  it  up  to  the 
point  where  it  is  taken  off  from  the  Cydnus). 

It  was  not  necessary  for  Justinian  to  make  a  new  channel 
all  the  way  to  the  sea.  A  watercourse  flowed  down  parallel 
to  the  Cydnus  past  the  eastern  side  of  the  city.  All  that 
was  necessary  was  to  make  a  cutting  from  the  Cydnus, 
beginning  from  a  point  about  a  mile  north  of  the  modern 
town,  and  diveiging  gradually  from  it  towards  the  other 
bed,  which  it  joins  on  the  east  side  of  the  m  )dern  city. 
This  watercourse  was  too  small  for  the  large  body  of  water 
that  afterwards  came  to  run  through  it ;  and  hence  in  modern 
times  there  are  annual  floods  and  great  part  of  the  country 
south  of  the  city  is  sometimes  inundated.  In  May,  1902, 
we  could  hardly  make  our  way  down  by  the  west  side  of 
the  Cydnus  towards  the  sea,  and  the  horses  had  to  wade 
a  long  distance  through  fairly  deep  water  that  covered  the 
fields. 

The  artificial  character  of  the  channel  in  which  the  Cyd- 
nus now  flows  on  the  north  and  north-east  sides  of  the  city 
is  plainly  shown  in  the  so-called  "  Falls  of  the  Cydnus," 
a  little  below  the  point  where  the  modern  course  diverges 
from  the  ancient  bed.  The  rocks  over  which  the  stream 
falls  contain  numerous  ancient  graves,  and  many  of  these 
are  underneath  the  ordinary  level  of  the  water  and  visible 
only  when  the  river  is  at  its  lowest. 

While  the  river  in  its  modern  course  never  touches  the 


Falls  of  the  Cvdnus   (the  new   Kiver  of  Justinian)   on  the  north  side  of  Tarsus. 

See  p.    107 


The   Cilician   Galcs 


See  p.  113- 


IV.    Tarsus,  the  River  and  the  Sea  109 

town,  and  artificial  canals  carry  the  water  to  irrigate  the 
gardens  and  turn  the  cotton  mills  and  other  mach'nery  in 
Tarsus,  the  ancient  Cydnus  flowed  right  through  the  city. 
Strabo,  Dion,  Xenophon,  and  other  authorities  agree  in  this 
statement.  About  two  miles  or  less  below  the  city  there 
is  formed  in  the  wet  season  a  small  lake,  which  generally 
disappears  in  summer.  This  lake  forms  in  a  slight  depression 
on  the  former  bed  of  the  river,  as  the  flow  of  the  water  is 
impeded  by  modern  conditions  ;  but  no  such  lake  was  per- 
mitted to  form  when  Tarsus  was  a  great  city. 

About  five  or  six  miles  below  the  town  the  ancient 
Cydnus  flowed  into  a  lake.  This  lake  is  fed  by  natural 
springs  in  its  bed  (as  I  was  informed  by  good  authorities), 
and  must  always  have  existed.  Its  ancient  name  was 
Rhegmoi  or  Rhegma ;  and  the  name  must  be  taken  as  a 
proof  that  it  was  at  one  time  a  lagoon,  into  which  the  sea 
broke  over  a  bar  of  sand.  Thus  at  some  remote  period, 
the  memory  of  which  was  preserved  by  the  name,  the  river 
had  no  proper  mouth  to  discharge  itself  into  the  sea  (re- 
sembling in  this  respect  the  Sarus,  as  described  above, 
§  III.).  But  in  the  time  of  Strabo,  and  doubtless  for  cen- 
turies pieviously,  the  lake  was  separate  from  the  sea,  and 
communicated  with  it  only  through  the  lower  course  of  the 
river.  Strabo  describes  the  lake  as  a  widening  of  the  river. 
There  was  doubtless  then,  as  now,  a  belt  of  sand  and  dunes 
between  the  lake  and  the  sea,  though  it  remains  uncertain 
whether  the  belt  was  as  broad  then  as  it  now  is. 

The  lake  was  the  harbour  of  Tarsus.  Here  were  the 
docks  and  arsenal.  Here  most  ships  discharged,  though 
light  galleys,  like  that  which  carried  Cleopatra,  could  be 
navigated  up  into  the  heart  of  the  city.  Round  three  sides 
of  the  lake,  probably,  extended  the  harbour  town,  which 


110  II.    Tarsus 

was  called  Aulai.^°  The  city  did  not  extend  to  the  southern 
side  of  the  lake  ;  not  a  trace  of  it  has  been  found  on  that 
side ;  but  the  buildings  extended  in  an  almost  unbroken 
succession  from  the  lake  to  the  city. 

The  conformation  of  the  country  shows  that  the  Cydnus 
must  have  flowed  in  a  comparatively  straight  course  south- 
wards through  the  plain  into  the  lake.  The  exact  line  of 
its  old  channel  cannot  always  be  traced,  but  its  general 
course  is  evident.  In  the  centre  of  the  city,  however,  it 
made  a  sharp  bend  eastwards  for  a  short  distance,  and  then 
turned  south  again.  Its  old  channel  in  this  bend  is  quite 
clearly  visible  within  the  modern  town ;  and  a  more  careful 
survey  might  suffice  to  place  its  whole  course  on  a  map  with 
exact  certainty. 

The  Cydnus  flows  with  a  much  swifter  current  down  a  far 
less  level  course  than  the  Sarus,  The  railway,  which  passes 
a  short  mile  north  of  Tarsus,  is  a  few  feet  higher  above  the 
sea  at  Tarsus  than  at  Adana  {6^^  feet),  and  therefore,  while 
the  Sarus  has  a  meandering  course  of  fifty  or  sixty  miles 
from  Adana  to  the  sea,  the  Cydnus  falls  a  little  more  in  its 
course  of  about  eleven  miles.  But  the  fall  is  greatest  above 
the  city,  less  within  it  and  far  less  below  it.  Even  the  upper 
lake  or  marsh  cannot  be  much  above  sea  level,  and  the  lower 
permanent  lake  is  probably  little,  if  at  all,  higher  than  the 
sea,  except  when  it  is  swollen  by  rains  and  by  overflow 
from  the  modern  river  on  the  east. 

At  an  early  period  of  history  a  great  deal  of  labour  and 
skill  must  have  been  expended  on  the  channel  of  the  Cydnus 
and  on  the  lake  in  order  to  regulate  and  limit  them,  and  to 
improve  the  navigation.  The  once  useless  lagoon  was  con- 
verted into  a  convenient  harbour,  open  to  ships  through 
the  mouth  of  the  river,  yet  completely  shut  in  and  safe 


IV.    Tarsus,  the  River  and  the  Sea         1 1 1 


against  sudden  attack  from  the  sea.  Nature  had  aided  the 
work  by  forming  a  broader  belt  of  sandy  sea-shore  and 
transforming  the  lagoon  into  a  lake.  But  engineering  skill 
was  required  to  improve  the  lower  course  of  the  river,  to 
facilitate  its  flow  and  prevent  inundation,  to  deepen  and  em- 
bank the  channel  and  to  drain  the  marshes,  as  well  as  to 
border  the  lake  with  the  quays  and  dockyards  which  Strabo 
describes.  The  lake  was  certainly  smaller  in  ancient  times 
than  it  now  is,  and  proportionately  deeper.  The  river  pro- 
bably issued  from  it  at  the  south-eastern  end  and  found  its 
way  into  the  sea  through  the  same  mouth  as  at  the  present 
day,  though  the  present  communication  from  the  lake  to  the 
modern  river  is  by  a  cutting  about  a  hundred  yards  north  of 
the  probable  former  channel  of  the  river. 

This  brief  survey  shows  what  was  the  foundation  on  which 
rested  the  love  and  pride  with  which  the  Tarsians  regarded 
their  river.  The  Cydnus  is  very  far  from  being  a  beautiful 
or  a  grand  stream.  Nature  was  not  originally  kind  to 
Tarsus.  Nothing  can  be  drearier  or  more  repellent  than  the 
stretch  of  land  and  river  between  the  city  and  the  sea,  as 
the  modern  traveller  beholds  it.  No  amount  of  skill  could 
ever  make  it  beautiful.  Dion  certainly  was  thoroughly 
justified  when  he  said  to  the  Tarsians  that  as  regards 
natural  surroundings  and  advantages,  they  were  inferior  to 
numberless  cities.  But  their  river  was  their  own  in  the  sense 
that  their  own  skill  and  energy  had  made  it.  They  had 
transformed  that  dreary  stretch  of  half-inundated  lands, 
fringed  by  sand-heaps  along  the  sea,  into  a  rich,  well- 
drained  and  well-watered  plain,  holding  in  its  bpsom  a  vast 
city  through  which  ran  for  miles  a  river  capacious  of  the 
merchandise  of  many  lands — a  city  with  its  feet  resting  on 
a  great  inland  harbour  and  its  head  reaching  up  to  the  hill& 


112  II,    Tarsus 

This  is  only  one  of  the  numberless  cases  in  the  ancient 
world  in  which  a  great  engineering  operation  lies  far  away 
back  at  the  beginning  of  the  history  of  a  city  or  a  district. 
The  effort  and  the  struggle  for  victory  over  nature  in  such 
cases  seem  to  have  started  the  population  on  a  career  of 
success,  teaching  them  to  combine  and  to  organise  the  work 
of  many  for  a  common  benefit,  and  showing  in  the  result 
how  union  and  toil  could  make  their  city  great  and  its 
inhabitants  respected. 

When  once  the  Cydnus  had  been  regulated  and  naviga- 
tion made  possible,  Tarsus  was  placed  in  a  very  favourable 
situation.  It  was  (as  Thucydides  says)  a  necessity  for  the 
early  trading  cities  that  they  should  lie  at  some  distance 
from  the  sea  in  order  to  be  safe  from  pirates.  Tarsus  was 
situated  at  the  head  of  the  navigation  of  a  river,  which  it 
had  by  its  own  work  and  skill  made  navigable ;  and  it  took 
full  advantage  of  its  position.  Though  not  most  favourably 
situated  by  nature  to  be  the  distributing  centre  for  Cilicia, 
and  the  road  centre  for  communication  with  other  lands, 
it  entered  into  competition  with  rivals  that  were  more 
favoured  by  nature,  and  by  another  great  piece  of  engineer- 
ing placed  itself  in  command  of  the  best  route  from  Cilicia 
to  the  north  and  north-west  across  the  Taurus  mountains. 
Tarsus  cut  the  great  pass,  called  the  Cilician  Gates,  one  of 
the  most  famous  and  the  most  important  passes  in  history. 

§  V.    Tarsus  and  the  Cilician  Gates, 

The  broad  and  lofty  ridge  of  the  Taurus  mountains 
divides  Cilicia  on  the  south  from  Cappadocia  and  Lycaonia 
on  the  north.  The  Taurus  is  cut  obliquely  from  north- 
west to  south-east  by  a  glen,  down  which  flows  a  river 
called  Tchakut  Su,  rising  in  Cappadocia  and  joining  the 


V.    Tarsus  and  the  Cilician  Gates  113 

Sarus  in  Cilicia  near  Adana.  The  glen  of  the  Tchakut 
water  offers  a  natural  road,  easy  and  gently  sloping  through 
the  heart  of  Taurus.  It  is  generally  a  very  narrow  gorge, 
deep  down  amid  the  lofty  mountains ;  but  it  opens  out 
into  two  small  valleys,  one  near  the  northern  end,  the  Vale 
of  Loulon  or  Halala,  3,600  feet  above  the  sea,  the  other 
about  the  middle  of  its  course,  the  Vale  of  Podandus,  2,800 
feet.  At  the  east  end  of  the  Vale  of  Loulon  the  glen  is 
narrowed  to  a  mere  slit  barely  wide  enough  to  receive  the 
Tchakut  water,  and  the  road  has  to  cross  a  hill  ridge  for 
about  four  or  five  miles.  Apart  from  this  there  is  no  dififi- 
culty,  until,  a  few  miles  south-east  from  the  Vale  of  Podan- 
dus, the  glen  ends  before  the  southern  ridge  of  Taurus, 
which  rises  high  above  it,  like  a  broad,  lofty,  unbroken  wall. 
The  river  Tchakut  finds  an  underground  passage  through 
this  wall  ;  and  the  railway  will  in  some  future  age  traverse 
it  by  a  tunnel,  and  emerge  on  the  foot-hills  in  front  of 
Taurus,  and  so  come  down  on  Adana.  But  the  road  has 
to  climb  over  this  great  wall,  and  nature  has  provided  no 
easy  way  to  do  this.  The  earliest  road,  which  is  still  not 
altogether  disused,  went  on  south-eastwards  direct  to  Adana, 
ascending  the  steep  ridge  and  descending  again  on  the 
southern  side :  it  has  never  been  anything  but  a  hill  path, 
fit  for  horses  but  not  for  vehicles.  This  was  the  path  by 
which  Mallos  and  Adana  originally  maintained  their 
communication  and  trade  with  the  Central  Plateau  of 
Anatolia 

The  enterprise  of  the  Tarsians  opened  up  a  waggon  road 
direct  to  their  own  city.  A  path,  which  was  in  use  doubt- 
less from  the  earliest  time,  leaves  the  Tchakut  glen  at 
Podandus  (2,800  feet)  and  ascends  by  the  course  of  a  small 

stream,  keeping  a  little  west  of  south  till   it  reaches  and 

8 


114  ^^'    Tarsus 

crosses  the  bare  broad  summit  (4,300  feet),  where  Ibrahim 
Pasha's  lines  were  constructed  in  the  war  of  1836;  then  it 
descends  sharply  500  feet  beside  another  small  stream,  till 
it  reaches  a  sheer  wall  of  rock  through  which  the  stream 
finds  its  way  in  a  narrow  gorge,  the  "  Cilician  Gates ". 
Nature  had  made  this  gorge  just  wide  enough  to  carry  the 
water,  and  the  rocks  rise  steep  on  both  sides  to  the  height 
of  500  or  600  feet.  Except  in  flood,  men  and  animals 
could  easily  traverse  the  rough  bed  of  this  small  stream. 
But  the  pass  began  to  be  important  only  when  the  Tarsians 
built  a  waggon  road  over  the  difficult  hills  from  their  city 
to  the  southern  end  of  the  Gates,  and  then  cut  with  the 
chisel  in  the  solid  rock  on  the  west  bank  of  the  stream  a 
level  path  through  the  gorge.  Thus  the  pass  of  the 
"  Cilician  Gates  "  became  the  one  waggon  road  from  Cilicia 
across  the  Taurus,  and  remained  the  only  waggon  road 
for  many  centuries. 

We  naturally  ask  at  what  period  these  great  engineering 
works  were  achieved  ;  but  no  direct  evidence  is  attainable, 
except  that  a  waggon  road  leading  south  across  Taurus 
from  Tyana  was  in  existence  before  the  march  of  the  Ten 
Thousand  (401  B.C.),  and  this  waggon  road  must  neces- 
sarily be  the  road  through  the  Cilician  Gates.  For  my  own 
part,  though  strict  evidence  has  not  been  discovered  and 
certainty  is  unattainable,  I  feel  confident  that  the  waggon 
way  through  the  Cilician  Gates  had  been  cut  and  a  per- 
manent frontier  guard  stationed  there  centuries  before  that 
time.  The  probability  that  this  was  so  will  appear  in  the 
following  sections. 

This  survey  of  the  natural  conditions  by  which  Tarsian 
development  was  controlled  has  brought  out  clearly  that 
the  great  history  of  the  city  was  not  due  to  the  excellent 


V.    Tarsus  and  the  Cilician  Gates         1 1 5 

qualities  of  river,  climate,  sea  or  harbour  placed  at  its  dis- 
posal with  lavish  kindness  by  nature.  In  those  respects  it 
was  inferior,  as  Dion  says,  to  very  many  cities.  It  had 
subdued  nature  to  its  purposes,  it  had  made  for  itself  river 
and  harbour  and  access  to  the  sea,  and  a  great  engineered 
road  across  the  mountains ;  and  through  the  kindness  of 
nature  it  could  compensate  the  stifling  moist  heat  of  the 
plain  by  the  lighter  and  cooler  atmosphere  of  the  hills  or 
the  sharper  air  of  the  upper  Taurus  regions.  It  had  learned 
to  conquer  nature  by  observing  the  laws  and  methods  of 
nature.     It  was  the  men  that  had  made  the  city. 

Such  was  the  great  inheritance  which  they  bequeathed 
to  their  descendants.  An  inheritance  of  the  fruit  of  courage 
and  energy  like  this  is  a  great  thing  for  a  people,  and  a  just 
cause  of  pride  :  the  Tarsians  of  the  later  Greek  and  Roman 
times  were  stimulated  and  strengthened  by  the  conscious- 
ness of  their  descent  from  the  men  of  earlier  times. 
That  is  clearly  implied  by  the  language  of  Strabo  and  Dion  ; 
and  it  is  expressed  in  the  words  of  St.  Paul,  as  may  be 
gathered  from  Luke's  account  of  the  stormiest  scene  in  his 
chequered  and  adventurous  career,  when  he  replied  to  the 
Roman  Tribune,  "  I  am  a  Jew,  Tarsian  of  Cilicia,  citizen  of 
no  mean  city".  One  would  have  expected  him  to  claim 
the  Roman  rights,  as  indeed  he  did  a  few  moments  later ; 
but  the  first  words  that  rose  to  his  lips  came  direct  from 
his  heart  and  expressed  the  patriotism  and  pride  in  his 
fatherland,  his  patria,  that  lay  deep  in  his  nature.^^ 

The  city  that  was  his  fatherland  and  his  home  mattered 
much  to  Paul.  It  had  a  place  in  his  heart.  He  was  proud 
of  its  greatness.  He  thought  of  the  men  who  had  made  it 
and  bequeathed  it  to  his  time  as  men  connected  by  certain 
ties  with  himself  (Rom.  i.  14). 


ii6  II.    Tarsus 

Who  were  those  men  ?  Of  what  stock  was  the  people 
who  thus  made  their  own  river  and  harbour  ? 

§  VI.    The  Ionians  in  Early  Tarsus. 

According  to  the  view  stated  above,  the  formation  of  that 
important  pass  over  Taurus,  one  of  the  great  triumphs  of 
early  civilisation  over  the  conditions  of  nature,  was  simply 
a  stage  in  the  long  struggle  between  Tarsus  and  its  pair  of 
allied  rivals,  Mallos  with  Adana,  for  control  of  the  markets 
of  the  country.  From  this  point  of  view  it  becomes  clear 
also  that  Tarsus  first  became  a  harbour  and  a  sea  power, 
and  afterwards  proceeded  to  open  up  the  land  road  as  a 
means  of  developing  its  commerce. 

The  conformity  of  the  facts,  as  thus  stated,  with  the 
character  of  Greek  trading  enterprise  at  numberless  points 
round  the  Mediterranean  and  Black  Seas,  is  striking.  Surely 
the  development  of  Tarsus  must  imply  a  mixture  of  Greek 
blood  and  race  in  the  city.  This  idea  is  confirmed  and 
definitely  proved  by  the  fact  that  the  first  station  north  of 
Tarsus,  on  the  way  to  the  Gates,  bore  the  name  of  Mopsou- 
krene,  the  Fountain  of  Mopsus.  Mopsus  was  the  religious 
impersonation  and  expression  of  the  expansive  energy  of 
the  Greek  colonies  on  the  Cilician  and  the  neighbouring 
Pamphylian  and  Syrian  coasts.  Such  colonies  always  went 
forth  under  divine  guidance,  and  this  guidance  regularly 
proceeded  from  a  single  centre,  viz.,  one  of  the  abodes  of 
prophetic  inspiration  which  the  Greeks  called  Oracles.  In 
the  best  known  period  of  Greek  history  the  Delphic  Oracle 
was  the  chief  agent  in  directing  the  streams  of  Greek  over- 
flow and  colonisation  in  the  various  lines  along  which  it 
spread.  But  the  Cilician  colonies  were  founded  at  an  earlier 
time,  when  the  Delphic  Oracle  had  not  yet  established  such 


VI.    The  lonians  in  Early  Tarsus  117 

a  widespread  influence.  The  divine  guidance  that  marked 
out  the  way  to  the  Cilician  land  proceeded  from  an  Ionian 
centre,  viz.,  the  Oracle  of  Clarian  Apollo  near  Colophon, 
Mopsus  is  the  expression  (according  to  the  anthropomorphic 
method  of  Greek  popular  thought)  of  the  orders  of  Apollo 
of  Claros,  in  obedience  to  which  trade  and  settlement  on 
the  Levant  coasts  set  forth  from  the  shores  of  Lydia  and 
Caria. 

Mopsus  was  the  leader  and  guide  of  the  expansive  energy 
of  Mallos,  as  well  as  of  Tarsus ;  and  the  town  which  was 
founded  on  the  road  from  M  .llos  to  inner  and  Eastern 
Cilicia  was  called  Mopsou-estia,  the  Hearth  of  Mopsus. 
Mopsus  was  a  far  more  important  figure  in  the  religion  of 
Mallos  than  in  that  of  Tarsus.  He  slipped  out  of  the  latter 
to  such  an  extent  that  no  other  trace  of  his  former  exist- 
ence there  is  known  to  us  besides  the  village  of  Mopsoukrene. 
The  reason  can  only  be  that  the  Greek  element  and  the 
Greek  religion  were  weaker  in  Tarsus  than  in  Mallos ;  and 
this  is  shown  by  other  facts.  But  the  presence  of  Mopsus 
in  Tarsian  local  nomenclature  is  a  complete  proof  that 
the  Greek  element  was  influential  at  a  very  early  time  in 
that  city. 

This  Greek  expansion  was  designated  in  old  Oriental  and 
Semitic  tradition  as  "  the  sons  of  Javan,"  i.e.,  the  "  Ionian  " 
traders.  "  The  sons  of  Javan  "  are  the  Greek  race  in  its 
progress  along  the  Levant  coasts  eastwards,  which  brought 
the  Ionian  Greeks  within  the  sphere  of  knowledge  and  inter- 
course of  the  Semites. 

The  very  ancient  Ionian  connection  of  Tarsus  is  set  forth 
in  that  important  old  geographical  document,  preserved 
to  us  in  Genesis  x.  4  f.  :  "  The  sons  of  Javan  :  Elishah, 
and  Tarshish,  Kittim  and  Dodanim  (or  better,  Rodanim), 


1 1 8  II.    Tarstis 

Of  these  were  the  coasts  of  the  nations  divided  in  their 
lands,  every  one  after  his  tongue;  after  their  families,  in 
their  nations."  The  most  probable  interpretation  of  this 
list  is  still  that  of  Josephus  :  Kittim  is  Cyprus  (Kition,  the 
leading  city  of  early  time),  and  Tarshish  is  Tarsus.  That 
Rodanim  means  the  settlers  of  Rhodes  seems  to  follow 
naturally  (Dodanim  being  rejected  as  a  false  text).^^  Elishah 
has  been  very  plausibly  explained  as  the  land  of  Alasia  or 
Alsa  (mentioned  in  the  Tel-el-Amarna  tablets),  which,  as  is 
generally  agreed,  lay  somewhere  in  the  Syrian-Cilician- 
Cyprian  coast  region ;  and  this  explanation  must,  in  the 
present  state  of  our  knowledge,  supersede  all  others  (though, 
of  course,  certainty  is  not  yet  attainable  on  such  matters). 

Bearing  in  mind  the  close  connection  between  the  Aleian 
plain  and  Mallos,  and  the  way  in  which  Herodotus  seems 
to  assume  as  self-evident  that  Mallos  was  the  harbour  of 
the  Aleian  plain  (see  §  III.),  we  must  admit  the  probability 
of  Professor  Sayce's  suggestion  that  Alasia  is  the  Aleian 
plain,  with  its  harbour  and  capital  Mallos.^^  This  identifi- 
cation would  discover  in  the  list  of  Gen.  x.  4  the  two  great 
harbours  of  ancient  Cilicia  and  the  two  great  islands  off  the 
south  coast  of  Asia  Minor.  These  four  were  "  the  sons  of 
Javan,"  the  four  Greek  foundations  which  first  brought  the 
Ionian  within  the  ken  of  the  nations  of  Syria  and  Palestine. 

The  objections  made  by  modern  scholars  to  the  identifica- 
tion of  Tarsus  and  Tarshish,  and  the  rival  theories  which 
they  propose,  seem  utterly  devoid  of  strength  or  probability. 
To  suppose  that  Tartessos,  or  any  other  place  in  Spain, 
formed  part  of  the  list  in  Genesis  x.  4,  is  geographically 
meaningless  and  historically  impossible ;  and  the  theory 
that  the  Etruscan  people  (Tyrsenoi)  was  meant  is  nearly  as 
bad.     To  say  that  Tarsus  was  not  founded  when  this  docu- 


VI.    The  lonians  in  Early  Tarsus  1 1 9 

ment  was  written  is  to  pretend  to  a  knowledge  about  the 
beginnings  of  Tarsus  which  we  do  not  possess,  and  to  set 
undeserved  value  on  the  foundation  legends  stated  by  Strabo 
and  others  (see  §  VIII.).  It  is  also  objected  that  the  Aramaic 
spelling  of  the  name  (as  shown  on  the  coins)  was  with  -r  z- 
and  not  -r  s  h- ;  but  great  changes  and  varieties  in  the 
spelling  of  foreign  geographical  names  are  frequently  found 
in  other  cases.  This  Cilician  or  Anatolian  name  was  spelt 
Tarsos  by  the  Greeks,  Tarzi-  in  Aramaic,  and  Tarshish  in 
the  document  of  Genesis  x. 

It  may  also  be  urged  in  objection  that  the  Greek  colonies 
of  Cilicia  seem  to  have  been  Dorian,  whereas  Genesis  x.  4 
speaks  of  "  Ionian  ".  But  who  would  venture,  in  the  face  or 
the  recent  discoveries  which  have  upset  all  our  old  ideas 
about  early  Greece,  to  dogmatise  about  the  meaning  of 
"  Ionian "  in  the  second  millennium  B.C.,  or  to  say  that 
"  lonians "  could  not  have  founded  colonies  in  Cilicia  so 
early  as  that?  We  cannot  say  anything  more  definite  than 
that  "  the  sons  of  Javan  "  were  the  Greek  settlers  and  traders 
as  known  to  the  people  of  Phoenicia  or  Syria,  before  the 
distinction  between  Ionian  and  Dorian  had  any  existence 
among  the  Greeks.  On  the  Dorian  character  in  Cilicia, 
and  its  late  origin,  see  §  XII. 

It  would  be  out  of  place  here  to  discuss  the  questions  that 
rise  out  of  the  various  uses  of  the  name  Tarshish  in  the 
Old  Testament ;  nor  am  I  competent  to  do  so.  But  it  is 
important  for  our  present  purpose  to  note  that  the  exports 
from  Tarshish  to  Tyre  included  silver,  iron,  tin,  and  lead 
(Ezek.  xxvii.  12  ;  Jer,  x.  9).  Silver  and  lead  are  found  in 
abundance  in  the  Taurus  mountains,  close  to  the  route  of 
the  Cilician  Gates,  and  the  mines  have  been  worked  there 
from  time  immemorial.     Iron  has  been  found  and  worked 


I20  II.    Tarsus 

from  an  extremely  early  time  in  the  northern  or  Pontic 
region  of  Cappadocia,  and  it  is  commonly  held  by  scholars 
that  the  use  of  iron  for  the  benefit  of  man  originated  there. 
The  Pontic  production  was  carried  south  by  the  Cilician 
Gates  to  Tarsus.  Tin  is,  however,  not  known  to  be  found 
in  Asia  Minor. 

Assuming  the  identification  of  Tarshish  and  Tarsus,  we 
find  the  same  name  in  various  slight  modifications,  lasting 
from  the  second  millennium  before  Christ,  through  the 
Assyrian,  Persian,  Greek,  Roman,  Arab,  Egyptian,  and 
Turkish  domination,  down  to  the  Tersous  of  the  present 
day.  Tarsus,  always  half  Oriental,  adapted  itself  readily  to 
every  Oriental  ruler,  and  preserved  its  continuous  individu- 
ality under  all.  While  it  would  not  be  justifiable,  in  the 
conflict  of  opinion,  to  draw  weighty  historical  inferences  at 
present  from  the  identification,  we  can  at  least  infer  that 
"  the  sons  of  Javan  "  are  allowed  by  general  opinion  to  have 
had  a  footing  somewhere  on  the  east  Levant  coasts  in  the 
second  millennium  at  Alasia  and  Kittim.  If  so,  they  must 
have  had  landing  places  or  ports  in  Cilicia,  and  these  can 
hardly  have  been  elsewhere  than  on  the  rivers  at  Mallos 
and  Tarsus. 

With  this  early  origin  of  Tarsus  we  shall  find  that  all  the 
evidence  is  in  perfect  agreement.  The  reasons  for  thinking 
that  the  early  Tarsus  was  one  of  "  the  sons  of  the  Ionian" 
are  as  strong  as  can  be  expected  in  that  period  of  history. 
But  this  expression  must  be  properly  understood.  It  is  not 
intended  to  mean  that  Ionian  Greeks  were  the  first  people 
that  formed  a  settlement  at  Tarsus.  Tarsus  was  doubtless 
one  of  those  primeval  towns,  like  Damascus  and  Iconium, 
which  have  been  such  since  settled  habitation  and  towns 
began  to  exist  in  the  countries.     It  is,  indeed,  highly  prob- 


VII.    Tarsus  as  an  Oriental  Town  121 


able  that  the  earliest  Tarsus  was  situated  on  the  outer  hills, 
about  two  miles  north  of  the  present  town,  because  defensive 
strength  was  one  of  the  prime  necessities  for  early  towns,  and 
only  on  the  hills  could  this  be  attained. 

Nor  do  we  mean  that  the  early  Ionian  Tarsus  was  in- 
habited solely  by  Ionian  Greeks.  There  was  rarely,  if  ever, 
a  case  in  which  Greeks  formed  the  sole  population  of  a  city 
which  they  founded  in  a  foreign  land.  The  strength  and 
permanence  of  the  Greek  colonies  were  due  to  their  power 
of  assimilating  the  native  population,  and  imparting  to  it 
something  of  their  own  genius  and  aspirations ;  but  a  mere 
settlement  of  unmixed  aliens  on  a  foreign  shore  would  have 
been  unable  to  maintain  itself  against  the  untempered  hos- 
tility of  a  native  population  nearly  as  high  in  capacity  and 
vigour  as  the  aliens  themselves.  All  analogy  points  to  the 
conclusion  that  this  Ionian  colony  was  a  mixed  town,  not 
a  pure  Ionian  settlement. 

With  regard  to  that  early  time,  we  must  content  ourselves 
for  the  present  with  analogy  and  indirect  argument.  Until 
Cilicia  is  better  known  and  more  carefully  studied,  its  earliest 
history  must  remain  almost  a  blank,  just  as  its  mediaeval 
history  also  is  enveloped  in  obscurity. 

§  VII.  Tarsus  as  an  Oriental  Town. 
As  has  been  stated  in  §  VI.,  it  seems  to  be  certain  and 
admitted  that  the  ancient  document  in  Genesis  x.  bears 
witness  to  an  extension  of  Ionian,  i.e.,  very  early  Greek 
influence  along  the  Asiatic  coasts  in  the  second  millennium 
B.C.  ;  for  modern  authorities  are  agreed  that  some  at  least 
of  "  the  sons  of  Javan  "  are  to  be  found  on  the  south  coast 
of  Asia  Minor,  or  in  the  Levant  islands.  The  following 
millennium  shows  a  retrograde  movement  in  the  extent  of 


122  II.    Tarsus 

Greek  influence,  and  a  distinct  strengthening  of  the  Asiatic 
power  and  spirit,  in  this  region ;  and  this  strongly  affected 
the  fortunes  of  Tarsus. 

Such  ebb  and  flow  in  the  tides  of  influence  of  East  on 
West,  and  West  on  East,  has  always  characterised  the  move- 
ment of  history  in  the  borderlands,  and  especially  along  the 
land  roads  across  Asia  Minor,  that  bridge  of  nations  stretch- 
ing across  from  Asia  to  Europe,  and  along  the  sea-way  of 
the  southern  coast.  At  one  time  Europe  sweeps  over  great 
part  of  Asia,  and  seems  on  the  point  of  overrunning  the 
whole  continent ;  but  always  Asia  recruits  its  forces,  rolls 
back  the  tide  of  conquest,  and  retaliates  by  engulfing  parts 
of  Europe.  If  Alexander  marched  to  the  Indus  and  his 
successors  ruled  over  Bactria  and  Afghanistan,  the  Arabs 
marched  to  the  banks  of  the  Loire  and  the  Turks  to  the 
walls  of  Vienna,  and  all  of  them  made  only  evanescent  con- 
quests. Europe  cannot  permanently  subdue  Asia,  nor  Asia 
Europe. 

Thus  from  an  Ionian  colony  Tarsus  became  an  Oriental 
city,  and  in  this  character  it  is  revealed  to  us  in  the  oldest 
historical  records  in  which  it  is  mentioned.  The  earliest 
reference  to  Tarsus  occurs  on  the  Black  Obelisk  of  Shal- 
maneser,  king  of  Assyria  :  he  captured  this  with  other  towns 
about  the  middle  of  the  ninth  century  B.C.,  and  at  this  time 
may  be  dated  (so  far  as  evidence  or  probability  reaches) 
the  first  entrance  of  a  thoroughly  Asiatic  race  into  the 
country  west  of  Mount  Amanus. 

Neither  the  domination  of  the  Assyrians,  nor  that  of  the 
Medians  afterwards,^*  nor  the  rule  of  the  Persians  from  the 
sixth  century  onwards,  was  likely  to  cause  much  change  in 
the  organisation  of  the  country  or  the  character  of  the  cities. 
Those  Oriental  states,  only  loosely  knit  together  even  neaf 


VII.    Tarsus  as  an  Oriental  Town  123 

the  centre,  exercised  their  power  over  such  outlying  pro- 
vinces chiefly  by  means  of  governors,  who  represented  the 
king  in  his  suzerainty  over  the  native  chiefs  and  townships, 
while  the  latter  retained  much  of  their  old  authority  within 
their  own  territories.  The  change  that  occurred  in  the  state 
of  Tarsus  was  due  not  to  the  governing  foreign  empire,  but 
to  internal  causes  and  especially  to  the  decay  of  the  Greek 
element,  which  was  absorbed  into  the  native  population. 

The  reinvigoration  of  Orientalism,  or  rather  the  weaken- 
ing of  the  Western  spirit  of  freedom  and  self-assertion  in 


Fig.  I. — Reverse  of  coin  struck  at  Tarsus  by  the  king  of  Cilicia  shortly 
before  400  p.c.  ;  inscribed  Tarz  in  Aramaic  letters. 

Cilicia,  is  marked  by  the  growth  of  a  native  Cilician  dynasty 
of  petty  kings,  who  ruled  Cilicia  under  the  Persian  kings 
as  overlords  ;  thus  the  Cilicians  were  the  servants  of  the 
servant  of  the  Great  King.  Kingship,  which  was  alien  and 
repellent  to  the  ancient  spirit  of  the  European  races,  was 
congenial  to  an  Oriental  people.  So,  for  example,  when 
the  last  king  of  a  Cappadocian  dynasty  died,  the  Romans 
offered  the  people  their  freedom.  The  Cappadocians,  who 
did  not  know  what  freedom  was,  begged  for  a  king.  The 
Romans  marvelled  that  any  people  could  prefer  slavery  to 


124  II.    Tarsus 

freedom,  but  treated  them  after  their  own  character  and 
appointed  a  king  to  rule  over  them. 

Accordingly  in  401,  when  Xenophon  crossed  Cilicia  with 
the  Ten  Thousand  Greeks  of  the  younger  Cyrus's  army,  he 
found  a  king  Syennesis,  whose  capital  was  apparently  Tar- 
sus. A  Cilician  king  of  the  same  name  had  co-operated  with 
the  king  of  Babylon  in  making  peace  between  Cyaxares  the 
Mede  and  Alyattes  the  Lydian  in  585  B.C.,  a  second  is 
mentioned  about  500  B.C.,  and  the  same  or  a  third  Syen- 
nesis fought  in  Greece  under  Xerxes  in  480  B.C.  On  the 
other  hand,  when  Alexander  the  Great  entered  Cilicia  in 
334  B.C.,  there  seems  to  have  been  no  king  of  Cilicia,  but 
only  a  Persian  officer  directly  governing  the  country.  The 
kings,  therefore,  must  have  been  put  down  ;  and  this  in 
all  probability  was  due  to  the  growth  of  stricter  organisa- 
tion in  the  Persian  empire,  and  stricter  exercise  of  the 
power  of  the  Great  King  in  the  outlying  provinces  through 
his  representatives  or  satraps.  The  action  which  Syennesis 
and  his  queen  Epyaxa  took  in  401  in  favour  of  Cyrus  against 
king  Artaxerxes  may  perhaps  have  shown  the  danger  in- 
volved in  suffering  Cilicia  to  be  governed  by  subordinate 
tributary  kings,  and  led  to  the  suppression  of  the  kings  and 
the  introduction  of  a  new  system  with  more  direct  control. 
At  any  rate,  it  may  be  stated  with  confidence  that  the 
Persian  kings  inherited  the  system  from  the  Assyrian  (and 
perhaps  the  Median)  domination,  and,  after  permitting  it 
to  continue  for  fully  a  century  and  a  half,  put  an  end  to  it 
soon  after  400  B.C.  As  to  the  character  of  the  Cilician 
kingdom,  and  the  constitution  of  Tarsus  as  its  capital,  nothing 
is  recorded. 

The  repetition  of  the  name  Syennesis  has  suggested  to 
some  modern  inquirers  that  this  name  was,  like  Pharaoh,  a 


VII.    Tarsus  as  an  Oriental  Town  125 

title  mistaken  by  the  Greeks  for  a  personal  name.  It  seems 
however  quite  probable  that  the  Cilician  kings  may  have 
been  really  priest-dynasts,  such  as  are  known  to  have  long 
ruled  at  Olba  among  the  Cilician  or  Isaurian  mountains,  and 
at  other  places  in  the  eastern  regions  of  Asia  Minor.^^  The 
priestly  power  naturally  tended  to  grow  greater  in  times  of 
disorganisation ;  and  the  Assyrian  kings  may  probably 
have  found  it  convenient  to  rule  through  the  leading  priest, 
who  was  quite  ready  to  suit  himself  to  their  requirements 
and  buy  temporal  power  at  the  price  of  service  to  a  foreign 
sovereign.  Now  the  priest's  authority  was  based  originally 
on  his  position  as  representative  on  earth  of  the  supreme 
god  of  the  district :  the  priest  wore  the  dress  and  bore  the 
name  of  the  god.^*'  If  the  origin  of  the  Cilician  kingship 
were  of  this  kind,  it  may  be  thought  probable  that  Syennesis 
was  a  Divine  name,  rather  than  a  title,  and  that  the  kings  at 
their  accession  lost  their  own  name  and  assumed  the  priestly 
name  taken  from  the  god,  as  e.g.,  the  priests  at  Pessinus 
assumed  the  name  of  Atis. 

The  coinage  of  this  Oriental  Tarsus,  while  showing  the 
strong  influence  of  the  Hellenic  element  in  the  population, 
also  reveals  the  weakening  of  that  influence.  The  coins 
belong  to  the  fifth  and  fourth  centuries,  and  were  evidently 
struck,  not  by  a  self-governing  city  of  the  Greek  kind,  but 
by  kings  and  by  Persian  satraps.^''  Yet  even  here  a  certain 
Greek  character  is  apparent.  Some  of  the  earliest  coins  are 
more  Hellenic  in  feeling  than  the  later.  Occasionally  there 
occurs  a  revival  of  Hellenic  character,  accompanied  by  the  use 
of  Greek  letters  on  the  coins ;  but  the  latest  coins  of  Tarsus 
under  the  Persian  domination,  though  imitated  from  Greek 
models,  were  strongly  Oriental  in  character,  wholly  devoid 
of  the  true  Hellenic  spirit,  and  bore  purely  Aramaic  legends. 


126  II.   Tarsus 

The  earliest  coins  attributed  to  Tarsus  are  as  old  as  the 
sixth  century,  and  prove  that  the  city  had  "commercial 
relations  with  Lydia  or  the  Ionian  coast-towns,"  which  is  in 
harmony  with  the  views  stated  in  §  VI.,  as  to  the  character  of 
the  old  Ionian  Tarsus.  But  as  the  attribution  to  Tarsus  of 
these  coins  (which  are  usually  left  unclassified)  is  not  uni- 
versally accepted,^'^a  it  is  best  to  leave  them  out  of  reckoning 
here.  These  coins  are  more  thoroughly  Greek  than  the 
Tarsian  coinage  of  the  following  centuries ;  but  this  is  pre- 
cisely what  a  study  of  the  city's  history  leads  us  to  expect. 

The  warrior  armed  in  the  Greek  fashion,  shown  in  Fig.  i, 
is  a  common  type  on  the  coins  struck  under  the  Cilician 
kings;  the  figure  still  retains  much  of  the  Greek  spirit, 
though  the  name  of  Tarsus  is  written  in  Aramaic  letters. 
On  the  obverse  of  the  coins  the  king  himself  is  shown,  quite 
in  the  Oriental  style,  as  a  horseman  galloping,  wearing  the 
Persian  head-dress.  A  coin  like  this  reveals  much.  There 
is  the  regal  government  symbolised  by  the  king,  who  wearS 
on  his  head  the  authority  granted  by  his  overlord  the 
Persian  Great  King.  That  some  share  of  the  old  Greek 
spirit  remained  in  the  population  appears  from  the  warrior 
on  the  reverse.  The  city  had  still  some  shadow  of  in- 
dividuality and  in  a  sense  independence,  i.e.,  it  was  not  a 
mere  unit  in  the  dominion  of  the  king,  but  retained  some- 
thing in  the  way  of  self- ad  ministering  authority:  this  seems 
to  be  shown  by  the  legend,  which  names  "  Tarsus,"  not 
"  Cilicia".  But  the  government  was  Oriental,  like  the  letters 
of  the  legend,  not  Greek.  All  this  suits  well,  and  even 
necessitates,  the  supposition,  that  a  free  constitution  had 
once  existed  in  Tarsus  and  was  gradually  dying  out  under 
Oriental  rule.  A  free  constitution  could  not  have  originated 
at  that  period,  except  through  the  influence  of  Greek  coloni- 


VII.    Tarsus  as  an  Oriental  Town 


J27 


sation.  Civic  freedom  was  unknown  and  inconceivable  in 
Oriental  towns;  it  was  a  gift  of  the  Greeks  to  the  world. 

The  double  character  of  the  city,  as  at  once  Cilician  and 
Persian,  is  shown  by  a  coin  (Fig.  17  in  §  IX.)  with  the  Tarsian 
god  and  the  Persian  god  occupying  each  one  side :  it  was 
struck  under  the  satrap  Tiribazus,  386-380  B.C.  This  coin 
is  described  in  connection  with  the  religion  of  Tarsus,  §  IX, 

Phamabazus,  satrap  of  the  regions  near  the  Hellespont 
from  about  412  B.C.  onwards,  struck  many  coins  in  Cilicia, 


Fig.  2. — Coin  struck  at  Tarsus  by  Pharnabazus,  379-374  B.C.  The  inscrip- 
tion, Pharnabazus  Cilicia,  on  the  reverse  is  in  Aramaic ;  but  the  heads  of 
the  goddess  and  the  warrior  are  of  the  Greek  type. 

doubtless  at  Tarsus,  when  he  was  on  duty  occasionally  in 
that  province,  arranging  the  expedition  against  Egypt  be- 
tween 379  and  374  B.C.  There  is  a  marked  recurrence  to 
Greek  types  on  these  coins.  The  head  of  the  goddess  or 
nymph  on  the  obverse,  with  necklace  and  earrings,  her 
streaming  hair  bound  by  a  sphendone  (a  band  resembling  a 
sling),  was  imitated  from  the  famous  and  lovely  representa- 
tion of  Arethusa  by  the  artist  Kimon  on  coins  of  Syracuse. 
The  head  of  a  warrior,  wearing  a  highly  ornate  crested  Attic 
lelmet,  with  a  chlamys  fastened  by  a  brooch  round  the  neck, 


128 


1 1.    Tarsus 


is  also  of  the  Greek  type.  The  long  intercourse  of  Pharna- 
bazus  with  the  Greeks  of  the  west  coast  of  Asia  Minor  made 
him  employ  Greek  artists  and  types  ;  but  the  legends  are  in 
Aramaic  letters,  with  some  few  exceptions  which  bear  the 
name  of  Tarsus  in  Greek.  It  would  be  out  of  place  to  seek 
for  any  specially  Tarsian  character  on  coins  struck  by  a  non- 
Cilician  satrap  on  such  occasional  sojourn  in  the  land. 

On  the  coin  of  Datames,  satrap  of  Cilicia,  378-2  B.C.  (Fig. 
3),  the  reverse  type  is  wholly  Oriental.     A  Persian  archer, 


Fig,  3. — Coin  struck  by  the  satrap  Datames,  378-372  B.C.  Obverse :  the 
Lord  of  Tarsus  with  his  name  Baal-Tarz  in  Aramaic  letters.  Reverse : 
the  satrap  in  Persian  costume  with  his  name,  Datames,  in  Aramaic. 
The  letters  are  read  as  Tarkamos  by  some  writers,  a  name  very  suitable 
for  a  native  of  East  Anatolia,  but  hardly  for  a  Persian  satrap. 

doubtless  the  satrap  himself,  wearing  the  Oriental  trousers 
and  long  sleeved  tunic  under  a  cloak,  sits  on  a  chair,  examin- 
ing an  arrow  which  he  holds  in  both  hands,  while  his  quiver 
lies  on  his  lap  and  his  bow  is  before  his  knee.  In  front  of 
him  is  the  winged  solar  disk  in  Persian  form.  Behind  him 
is  his  name  in  Aramaic  letters.  The  Oriental  character  of 
this  type  is  evident  by  comparison  with  the  Parthian  coins 
of  many  centuries  later,  on  which  the  Parthian  king  is  repre- 
sented by  a  figure  in  many  respects  similar ;  an  example  is 


VII.    Tarsus  as  an  Oriental  Town 


129 


shown  in  the  Letters  to  the  Seven  Churches^  p.  59.  But  on 
the  Tarsian  coin  the  art  has  not  wholly  lost  its  Greek  skill : 
on  the  Parthian  coin  it  is  thoroughly  barbaric. 

The  reverse  of  this  coin  shows  the  Baal  of  Tarsus.  The 
figure  is  of  Greek  attitude  and  Greek  origin  ;  but  it  had  long 
been  naturalised  in  Tarsus,  and  the  accompaniments  are  Ori- 
ental, like  the  name  and  the  letters  in  which  it  is  inscribed. 
The  memory  that  this  was  the  representation  of  the  Hellenic 


Fig.  4. — Coin  struck  by  Mazaeus,  366-333  b.c.  Obverse  :  the  Lord  of  Tarsus 
with  the  usual  Aramaic  inscription.  Reverse:  the  Syrian  Gates  and 
lion  attacking  bull ;  Aramaic  inscription,  "  Mazaeus  (satrap)  of  Trans- 
Euphratesia  and  Cilicia  ". 

Zeus  had  become  very  faint  in  Tarsus,  if  it  survived  at  all. 
See  §  IX.,  where  this  figure  is  more  fully  described. 

In  this  coin  the  one  side  is  Anatolian,  while  the  other  is 
Persian.  The  city  was  Perso-Cilician,  and  the  coin  reflects 
the  double  character. 

Several  coins  of  the  satrap  Mazaeus,  361-33  B.C.,  are  shown 
in  Figs.  4,  5,6,  and  9,  10,  §  IX.  Fig.  4  shows  a  lion  devouring 
a  bull,  a  favourite  Tarsian  type  (seen  also  in  Fig.  15),  with 
the  satrap's  name  and  title  in  Aramaic  letters,  and  a  curious 
device  of  two  parallel  battlemented  walls,  which  is  probably 
to  be  interpreted  as  a  representation  of  the  "  Gates  "  between 


1 30  II.    Tarsus 

Cilicia  and  Syria.  In  this  congeries  of  unconnected  symbols 
there  is  not  a  trace  left  of  the  Hellenic  spirit,  which  made 
every  coin-type  express  some  single  idea.^'^b  fhe  Aramaic 
legend  "  Mazaeus  (governor)  over  Eber-nahara  and  Cilicia " 
may  explain  the  double  type,  as  symbolising  the  double  region 
over  which  the  satrap  ruled.  Eber-nahara  was  "  the  country 
beyond  (/>.,  west  of)  the  river  (Euphrates)  "  ;  and  the  Syrian 
Gates  commanded  and  guarded  the  pass  leading  across  Mt. 
Amanus  from  Eber-nahara  to  Cilicia. 


Fig.  5. — Coin  struck  by  the  satrap  Mazaeus,  361-333  B.C.     This  coin 

may  belong  to  Magarsus,  not  Tarsus. 

On  the  obverse  of  this  coin  the  Lord  of  Tarsus  is  repre- 
sented in  very  slight  variation  from  the  preceding  (see  §  IX.). 

In  Fig.  9,  §  IX.,  the  type  is  a  variation  of  Fig.  4.  The 
lion  pulls  down  a  stag. 

Another  coin  of  the  same  satrap  (Fig.  5)  shows  the  head 
of  a  goddess,  similar  in  character  to  the  Greek  Athena :  she 
wears  an  Attic  helmet  with  a  strange  triple  crest,  also  ear- 
rings and  necklace.  The  obverse  has  another  slight  variation 
of  the  most  characteristic  Tarsian  type,  the  Baal  of  Tarsus 
The  goddess,  to  the  old  Anatolian  mind  the  chief  envisage- 
ment  of  the  Divine  power,  does  not  remain  a  prominent 


VIII.   Legends  of  Early  Tarsus  131 

■; 

figure  on  Tarsian  coins  ;  but  she  was,  doubtless  important  in 
the  ritual.  That  she  should  be  an  armed  goddess,  assimilated 
to  Pallas  Athena,  is  characterisic  of  the  East  Anatolian 
religion,  as  distiiic;uished  from  the  Central  Anatolian  or 
Phrygian   form   [see   Hastings'  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  v., 

P-  134  (2)]. 

A  third  coin  of  Ma/.aeus  (Fig.  6)  shows  a  lion  walking; 
above  his  back  is  a  star ;  beneath  his  feet  is  a  large  crescent 
The  collocation  of  types  is  Oriental  and  not  Hellenic.  The 
obverse  is  the  usual  Lord  of  Tarsus,  with  Aramaic  legend. 


Fig.  6. — Coin  struck  by  Mazaeus,  369-333  b.c.     The  name  of  the  satrap 
is  inscribed  in  Aramaic  letters. 

The  coinage  of  an  ancient  city  is  a  miniature  of  its  history; 
and  in  these  specimens  the  transition  of  Tarsus  into  a  thor- 
oughly Anatolian  and  Oriental  city  can  be  clearly  read. 

§  VHI.  Legends  of  Early  Tarsus. 

During  fully  five  centuries  therefore  Tarsus  was  merely  a 
town  under  Oriental  domination.  The  Assyrian  rule  left  a 
strong  impression  on  the  historical  memory,  which  created 
various  legends  veiling,  but  not  wholly  concealing,  the  real 
facts  of  that  time. 


132  II.    Tarsus 

Such  legends  about  the  early  history  of  a  city  commonly 
take  the  form  of  foundation  narratives :  they  describe  the 
circumstances  in  which  the  city  was  founded.  It  is  a  mis- 
take, however,  to  understand  that  they  were  intended  to 
describe  the  beginning  of  the  city.  The  ancients  used  the 
term  "  foundation  "  in  a  loose  way  to  indicate  any  important 
change,  or  anything  that  could  be  regarded  as  the  beginning 
of  a  new  period  in  the  history  of  the  city.  In  honorary 
inscriptions  of  the  later  time  the  title  "  Founder"  meant  little 
more  than  benefactor :  any  person  that  gave  a  building  or 
an  institution  or  a  donation  was  styled  a  founder  of  the  city. 
As  was  pointed  out  in  §  VI.  it  is  an  error  to  argue  that 
Tarsus  did  not  exist  at  the  time  when  the  document  quoted 
in  Genesis  x.  was  composed,  because  the  foundation  of 
the  city  is  assigned  to  a  later  period.  The  city  was,  in  a 
sense,  founded  over  and  over  again  ;  but  its  beginning  goes 
back  to  the  beginning  of  human  history  in  Cilicia. 

When  the  Assyrians  entered  Cilicia  about  850  B.C.,  Tarsus 
was  one  of  the  cities  that  they  conquered.  It  therefore 
existed  in  the  pre-Assyrian  period.  Solinus,  a  writer  who 
often  preserves  good  traditions,^^  says  that,  before  it  was 
conquered  by  the  Assyrians,  the  empire  of  Cilicia  extended 
to  the  borders  of  Egypt  and  included  Lydia,  Pamphylia, 
Cappadocia,  Armenia,  and  Media.  This  statement,  which 
once  would  have  been  thought  absurd,  is  now  seen  to  be  a 
vague  memory  of  the  historical  fact  that  the  Hittite  Empire, 
with  its  capital  in  Asia  Minor,  once  extended  from  Lydia 
to  the  borders  of  Egypt,  and  that  Cilicia  was  part  of  that 
Empire.  And  possibly  the  statement  of  Solinus  may  be 
hereafter  still  further  justified,  if  it  be  found  that  the  capital 
of  the  Hittite  Empire  was  at  one  time  within  the  bounds 
of  Cilicia.^^     Tarsus  was  certainly  a  flourishing  city  in  this 


VIII.   Legends  of  Early  Tarsus  133 

pre-Assyrian  time,  which  may  be  called  the  Anatolian 
period ;  and  its  religion  seems  to  have  retained  strong 
traces  of  that  early  civilisation.  To  that  time  belongs  the 
early  Ionian  settlement  in  Cilicia ;  but  it  is  vain  to  speculate 
about  the  history  of  that  period,  and  we  must  await  the 
progress  of  discovery,  which  seems  now  imminent. 

About  the  Assyrian  Tarsus  we  have  no  information  ex- 
cept in  the  form  of  foundation  legends.  Alexander  Poly- 
histor^*'  says  that  Sennacherib,  king  of  Nineveh  (705-681 
B.C.),  was  the  founder.  A  more  Hellenised  form  of  the 
legend,  related  by  Strabo  and  many  others,  makes  Sardana- 
palus  the  founder  of  Tarsus,  and  tells  how  he  recorded  on 
h  is  tomb  at  Anchiale,  fourteen  miles  south-west  from  Tarsus, 
that  he  had  built  those  two  cities  in  one  day.  The  story 
ran  that  on  this  tomb  was  a  statue  representing  Sardana- 
palus  snapping  his  fingers,  with  an  inscription  in  Assyrian 
letters :  "  Sardanapalus,  son  of  Anakyndaraxes,  built  An- 
chiale and  Tarsus  in  one  day.  Eat,  drink,  and  play,  for 
everything  else  is  not  worth  this  (action  of  the  fingers)." 
The  poet  Choirilos  versified  the  sentiment,  and  Aristotle 
quoted  it,  remarking  that  it  was  more  worthy  to  be  written 
on  the  grave  of  an  ox  than  on  the  tomb  of  a  king.  There 
is  some  difference  among  the  ancient  authorities  as  to 
whether  this  monument  was  in  Anchiale  or  in  Nineveh  ;  but 
the  authority  of  Aristoboulos  may  be  accepted  that  it  was 
really  at  Anchiale.  It  was  an  easy  error  to  transfer  the 
monument  of  an  Assyrian  king  from  Anchiale  to  Nineveh. 
The  opposite  process  could  not  have  occurred  to  any  one. 

The  form  of  this  legend  shows  that  it  is  founded  partly 
on  a  historical  fact,  viz.^  the  Assyrian  domination,  and 
partly  on  the  misunderstanding  of  a  work  of  art,  probably 
a  relief,  in  which  a  male  figure  was  represented  with  right 


134 


1 1.    Tarsus 


hand  raised  in  front  of  the  face.  This  gesture  which  ap- 
pears in  the  relief  at  Fassiler  (Fig.  7),  was  readily  mis- 
interpreted by  the  Greeks  in  later  time  as  denoting  the 
snapping  of  the  fingers ;  and  the  words  attributed  to  Sar- 
danapalus  in  the  legend  express  the  sentiment  which,  as 


Fig.  7. — Stele  at  Fassiler  on  the  border  of  Lycaonia  and  Pisidia.     The  god 
dess  with  her  lions ;  the  god  plants  one  foot  on  her  head. 

later  people  fancied,  corresponded  to  the  gesture  in  the 
relief.  The  "  Assyrian "  letters  were  either  cuneiform,  or, 
more  probably,  Hittite  hieroglyphics ;  and  were  certainly 
quite  unintelligible  to  the  Greeks  at  the  time  when  this 
legend  took  form. 


VIII.   Legends  of  Early  Tarsus 


135 


Thus  on  a  real  monument  at  Anchiale  was  founded  this 
mere  legend,  in  itself  devoid  of  any  truth  or  historic  value, 
and  yet  veiling  real  historical  facts. 

Other  legends  current  locally  show  that  some  memory  of 
the  old  Ionian  city  was  preserved  in  Tarsus.  Athenodorus, 
the  great  Tarsian  philosopher  in  the  time  of  Augustus,  says 
that  the  original  name  of  the  city  was  Parthenia,  a  purely 
Greek  name,  and  that  it  took  this  name  from  Parthenius, 
grandson  of  Anchiale,  the  daughter  of  lapetos,  i.e.,  Japhet. 
The  Oriental  idea  that  Javan,  the   "  Ionian,"  was  son  of 


Pjq_  8. Perseus  in  Greek  type,  as  shown  on  Tarsian  coins. 

Japhet  (Gen.  x.  2)  has  been  transformed  by  Greek  fancy 
into  this  legend,  which  thus  connects  the  two  cities,  Anchiale 
and  Tarsus,  with  Japhet  and  the  lonians. 

Strabo,  again,  says  that  the  people  whom  the  Greeks 
called  Cilicians  had  borne  at  first  the  name  of  Hypachaeans, 
but  afterwards  got  the  name  Cilicians  from  Cilix,  son  of 
Agenor,  king  of  Phoenicia.  It  is  very  common  to  find  the 
successive  changes  in  the  history  and  population  of  a  town 
expressed  in  legend  as  a  series  of  changes  of  name.  In  this 
case   the  thoroughly  Greek-sounding  name,  Hypachaeans, 


136  II.    Tarsus 

is  an  echo  of  the  old  Ionian  settlement  in  Cilicia,  and  Cilix 
represents  an  Asiatic  immigration  or  revival. 

Other  legends  current  in  later  time  at  Tarsus  made 
Perseus  or  Heracles  the  founder  of  Tarsus.  Perseus  and 
Heracles  seem  to  be  two  names  applied  by  the  Greeks  to  a 
hero  or  god  of  the  locality,  whose  influence  in  very  similar 
forms  can  be  traced  very  widely  through  the  eastern  parts 
of  Asia  Minor.  This  local  hero  was  treated  as  a  religious 
expression  of  historical  relations  and  racial  facts  ;  and  pro- 
bably it  might  be  found,  if  evidence  had  been  preserved  as 
to  the  course  of  Tarsian  history,  that  the  same  Anatolian 
Divine  figure  was  expressed  by  the  Greek  element  in 
Tarsus  at  one  time  as  Perseus  (Fig.  8)  and  at  another 
time  as  Heracles. 

The  Tarsian  legends  and  beliefs  regarding  Heracles  are 
unknown.  He  occurs  on  coins  only  in  stereotyped  Greek 
forms,  and  he  is  mentioned  by  Dion  Chrysostom,  speaking 
to  the  Tarsians,  as  "  your  leader,"  or  "  ancestor  "  ( Archegos, 
which  is  used  in  the  sense  both  of  "  leader  in  a  migration " 
and  "  ancestor  and  founder  of  a  race  ").     (Compare  Fig.  44.) 

The  legends  of  Perseus  at  Tarsus  are  better  attested ; 
they  are  often  represented  on  coins  of  the  city,  though  in 
an  obscure  and  as  yet  unexplained  form,  quite  different  from 
the  ordinary  Hellenic  representations  of  that  hero.  Perseus 
(Figs.  8,  14-16)  appears  sometimes  in  company  with  a 
fisherman,  sometimes  greeting  Apollo  or  adoring  the  image 
of  that  god,  which  is  placed  on  a  lofty  column,  or  carrying 
the  image  on  his  right  hand.  These  types  show  a  strange 
mixture  of  Greek  and  Oriental  ideas  ;  and  there  is  apparent 
in  the  forms  a  vague  suggestion  of  strangers,  viz.^  an  immi- 
grant and  a  native  people,  meeting  one  another.  This 
gast  Anatolian  Perseus  has  a  half  Greek  look,  and  he  is 


IX.    The  Religion  of  Tarstis  137 


found  in  localities  such  as  Iconium,  where  no  very  early- 
Greek  immigrants  can  possibly  have  penetrated.  The  choice 
of  name  may  perhaps  be  due,  in  some  vague,  unreasoning, 
and  now  unintelligible  way,  to  the  Persian  domination.  But 
it  is  necessary  to  regard,  not  only  the  historical,  but  also 
the  religious  side  of  these  legends  and  their  expression  on 
the  coins  ;  and  therefore  we  must  at  this  point  glance  at  the 
religion  of  Tarsus,  which  was  as  composite  as  the  population. 
The  religion  of  such  a  city  was,  in  a  sense,  an  epitome  of  its 
experience  and  a  summary  of  its  entire  history  ;  and  there- 
fore a  study  of  its  religion  is  indispensable  in  attempting  to 
understand  its  character  and  its  population. 

§  IX.    The  Religion  of  Tarsus. 

The  religion  of  Tarsus  is  an  extremely  complicated  subject, 
and  the  information  which  has  been  preserved  is  far  too 
scanty  to  permit  anything  like  a  satisfactory  account  of 
it.  Several  steps  in  its  development  can  be  distinguished 
with  certainty:  others  are  probable:  but  many  are  quite 
obscure. 

We  have  observed  in  Part  I.,  §  II.,  that  Paul  recognised  in 
the  pagan  religion  a  certain  element  of  truth  and  Divine 
insight.  This  he  had  learnt  in  Tarsus.  It  was  in  the 
religion  of  the  city  that  he  had  first  become  aware  of  cer- 
tain fundamental  ideals  of  good  amid  the  vast  accretion  of 
abomination  and  evil  built  up  round  and  over  those  initial 
ideas ;  and  this  fact  lends  a  special  interest  to  the  religion 
of  Tarsus.  It  is  not  our  object  to  describe  the  evil,  the  vice 
and  the  deception  involved  in  it  as  a  practical  working  factor 
in  the  life  of  the  later  city.  Much  of  that  evil  was  due  to 
degeneration,  part  of  it  was  inherent  from  the  beginning, 
because  the  initial  ideas  were  after  all  very  imperfect     In 


138  II.    Tarsus 

happier  circumstances,  it  might  have  been  possible  that  a 
succession  of  prophets  and  thinkers  should  succeed  in 
strengthening  the  truth  and  eliminating  the  evil  of  the 
original  ideas ;  but  true  development  had  been  denied  to 
the  Tarsian  cult.  As  the  embodiment  and  expression  of 
the  experience  of  the  people,  it  had  taken  into  itself  the 
evils  of  a  mixed  population,  of  a  rude  conquering  soldiery 
and  an  enslaved  populace ;  and  it  had  long  ago  ceased  to 
satisfy  the  minds  of  the  more  educated  pagans.  Yet  even  in 
the  latest  most  degraded  stage  it  had  not  lost  entirely  the 
ideas  of  Divine  truth,  which  had  originally  given  form  to 
it,  as  the  popular  perception  recognised  "the  witness  of 
himself"  which  the  beneficent  God  had  granted,  "  in  that  he 
did  good  and  gave  from  heaven  rains  and  fruitful  seasons 
and  filled  the  hearts  of  men  with  food  and  gladness  ".  These 
are  the  words  in  which  Paul  expressed  to  the  rude  Lystran 
people  in  a  simple  way,  such  as  they  could  understand,  the 
thought  which  he  expounded  in  more  philosophic  terms  in 
his  letter  to  the  Romans. 

In  the  growth  of  an  ancient  city  no  religious  fact  was  ever 
wholly  lost.  When  immigrants  or  colonists  settled  there, 
they  brought  their  own  religion  with  them,  but  they  did  not 
destroy  the  previously  existing  religion  any  more  than  they 
exterminated  the  older  population.  An  amalgamation  took 
place  between  the  religions  of  the  old  and  the  new  people ;  as 
e.g.^  at  Athens,  when  a  race  of  Poseidon-worshippers  settled 
beside  and  among  the  older  worshippers  of  Athena,  a  certain 
male  figure,  named  Erechtheus,  who  formed  part  of  the 
Divine  group  in  the  Athena-religion,  was  in  the  State  cultus 
identified  with  Poseidon,  and  thus  Athena  and  Poseidon- 
Erechtheus  were  associated  in  a  joint  worship  and  a  common 
temple. 


IX.    The  Religion  of  Tarsus  139 

In  Tarsus  we  can  say  with  certainty  that  the  early  Ionian 
immigrants  found  an  older  population  and  an  older  religion 
already  in  possession.  Certain  elements  in  the  later  Tarsian 
religion  can  be  distinguished  as  being  in  all  probability  pre- 
lonian,  others  as  Ionian.  The  Assyrian  domination  doubt- 
less affected  the  religion  of  the  country.  The  Persian  period 
left  unmistakable  traces,  which  appear  on  the  coins.  The 
new  foundation  of  the  Hellenic  Tarsus  about  170  B.C.  must 
inevitably  have  given  a  distinctly  more  Hellenised  aspect  to 
the  State  cultus,  though  it  had  little,  if  any,  effect  on  its  real 
nature.  The  Greek  element  in  the  new  population  readily 
adopted  the  national  cult,  identifying  their  Greek  gods  with 
the  Tarsian  deities,  and  merging  their  own  rather  formal 
religion  in  the  more  real  worship  of  the  Tarsian  gods.  Only 
the  Jewish  element  remained  separate,  and  did  not  affect 
the  State  religion,  though  it  certainly  must  have  affected 
strongly  the  character  and  views  of  many  individuals,  and 
produced  that  circle  of  believing  or  devout  persons  of  pagan 
origin,  who  in  every  city  surrounded  the  Synagogue.  It  was 
precisely  because  the  Jewish  religion  was  so  incapable  of 
amalgamation  with  the  others  that  the  Hellenes  of  those 
cities  complained  :  the  Jews  really  stood  outside  of  the  city 
union.  In  Tarsus,  so  far  as  the  scanty  evidence  justifies 
an  opinion,  the  Jews  seem  to  have  been  regarded  in  a  less 
degree  than  elsewhere  as  an  alien  element. 

The  principal  deity  in  Tarsus  was  the  one  who  is  styled 
on  coins  with  Aramaic  legends  of  the  Persian  and  early 
Seleucid  period,  Baal-Tarz,  the  Lord  of  Tarsus.  He  also 
appears  frequently  on  coins  of  the  Hellenic  Tarsus,  and 
sometimes  in  the  Roman  Imperial  time.  He  is  represented 
in  the  character  and  position  appropriated  to  Zeus  in  Greek 
art,  sitting  on  a  chair,  resting  his  raised  left  hand  on  a  long 


I40 


1 1.    Tarsus 


upright  sceptre,  and  holding  out  in  his  right  hand  objects 
varying  on  different  coins  and  at  different  periods,  but  most 
frequently  either  an  ear  of  corn  and  a  bunch  of  grapes,  or  a 
figure  of  Victory.  The  latter,  which  is  more  Hellenic,  is 
more  frequent  in  the  Roman  time,  the  corn  and  grapes  are 
commonest  in  the  earlier  period,  and  mark  this  god  as  the 
old  Anatolian  deity,  the  giver  of  corn  and  wine.  The 
censer  for  fumigation,  which  sometimes  stands  beside  him 
(Fig.  3),  marks  him  as  the  god  of  purification.  On  the  top 
of  the  sceptre,  or  on  his  hand,  sits  often  the  sacred  bird,  the 


Fio.  9. — Coin  struck  by  the  satrap  Mazaeus,  361-333  b.c.    "  Baal-Tarz,"  the 
Lord  of  Tarsus.     Reverse  :  lion  killing  a  stag. 

eagle.  The  strange,  and  quite  non-Hellenic  border,  in 
which  the  statue  of  the  god  is  framed  in  Fig.  3,  is  thought  to 
be  a  rude  way  of  indicating  the  temple  which  was  his  abode 
on  earth.     (Figs.  9,  10,  see  also  Figs.  3,  4,  6  in  §  VH.) 

Like  Zeus  in  Greek  art,  this  Tarsian  god  is  sometimes 
represented  as  standing  ;  but  the  regular  type  is  that  of  the 
sitting  deity. 

This  god  represents,  beyond  all  doubt,  the  old  Tarsian 
conception  of  the  Divine  power  as  male.  Under  Semitic 
influence  he  became  Baal-Tarz,  under  Greek  influence  he 


IX.    The  Religion  of  Tarsus 


141 


was  identified  with  Zeus.  But  he  was  older  than  the 
Aramaic  and  the  Greek  name ;  and  we  must  look  at  the 
original  Anatolian  envisagement  of  this  god. 

These  symbols,  corn-ears  and  grapes,  are  carried  in  the 
hands  of  the  god,  who  is  sculptured  of  colossal  size  on  the 
rocks  above  the  great  springs  at  Ibriz,  on  the  north  side  of 
Taurus.  He  is  there  represented  as  the  Peasant-God,  dressed 
simply  in  short  tunic,  high  boots,  and  tall  pointed  head- 
dress with  horns  in  front,  bearing  in  his  hands  the  gifts 
which  he  has  bestowed  on  mankind  by  his  toil,  the  corn  and 


Fig.  10. — Coin  of  Mazaeus  "  Baal-Tarz  ".     Reverse :  Hon  killing  a  bull. 

the  grapes.  Sculptured  there  long  before  the  Hellenic 
period  of  Central  Anatolian  history,  he  shows  only  the 
native  character,  without  a  trace  of  Greek  influence,  but 
with  a  strong  Assyrian  element.  This  god  of  Ibriz  is  the 
embodiment  of  the  toiling  agriculturist,  who  by  the  work  of 
his  hands  has  redeemed  the  soil  for  tillage,  gathered  out 
the  stones  from  it,  conducted  the  water  to  it,  ploughed  it 
and  sowed  in  it  the  corn,  or  planted  it  with  trees  and  tended 
them  and  cleaned  them  till  they  bear  their  fruit. ^^* 

But  that  is  not  the  Lord  of  Tarsus.     The  deity  who  sits 


142  II.    Tarsus 

on  a  chair,  wearing  simply  the  loose  himation,  which  could 
only  impede  active  exertion,  and  holding  the  sceptre,  is  not 
the  Peasant-God,  who  by  the  labour  of  his  hands  has  pro- 
duced the  corn  and  the  wine,  but  the  supreme  god  who 
gives  rain  and  fruitful  seasons  and  their  products,  who  with- 
out exertion  by  the  simple  word  of  his  power  bestows  his 
benefits  on  mankind. 

This  distinction  between  the  supreme  deity  and  the  working 
god  was  one  that  lay  deep  in  the  Anatolian  religion.  It 
was  expressed  by  the  rude  people  of  Lystra  when  they 
saluted  Barnabas  and  Paul  as  gods.  Paul  was  to  them 
Hermes,  and  Barnabas  was  the  supreme  god  and  father 
Zeus :  such  at  least  are  the  names  in  the  Greek  translation, 
for  we  unfortunately  are  denied  the  names  that  were  em- 
ployed in  the  Lycaonian  language.  I  cannot  illustrate  the 
distinction  better  than  by  quoting  a  few  lines  written  in 
1895.^^  "The  same  qualities  which  mark  out  Paul  to  us  as 
the  leader,  marked  him  out  to  the  populace  of  Lycaonia  as 
the  agent  and  subordinate.  The  western  mind  regards  the 
leader  as  the  active  and  energetic  partner;  but  the  Oriental 
mind  considers  the  leader  to  be  the  person  who  sits  still  and 
does  nothing,  while  his  subordinates  speak  and  work  for 
him.  Hence  in  the  truly  Oriental  religions  the  chief  god 
sits  apart  from  the  world,  communicating  with  it  through 
his  messenger  and  subordinate.  The  more  statuesque  figure 
of  Barnabas  was  therefore  taken  by  the  Orientals  as  the 
chief  god,  and  the  active  orator,  Paul,  as  his  messenger, 
communicating  his  wishes  to  men.  Incidentally,  we  may 
notice  both  the  diametrical  antithesis  of  this  conception  of 
the  Divine  nature  to  the  Christian  conception,  and  also  the 
absolute  negation  of  the  Oriental  view  in  Christ's  words 
to  His  disciples,   'whosoever  would  become  great  among 


IX.    The  Religio7t  of  Tarsus  143 

you  shall  be  your  minister ;  and  whosoever  would  be  first 
among  you  shall  be  your  servant '  "  (Matt.  xx.  26). 

This  distinction  was  appreciated  by  the  Greeks  in  their 
expression  of  the  Anatolian  religion.  The  supreme  god  is 
usually  called  by  the  name  of  their  supreme  deity,  Zeus. 
The  working  god  is  in  the  south-eastern  cities  of  Asia 
Minor  most  frequently  identified  with  Heracles,  the  hero 
labouring  under  a  cruel  taskmaster,  who  slays  monsters, 
drains  marshes,  and  gives  fertile  land  to  agriculture  ;  but  he 
is  also  envisaged  under  other  aspects,  especially  as  Apollo 
the  seer  of  the  Divine  will,  or  Hermes  the  messenger  who 
intimates  the  Divine  purpose  to  men. 

But  it  is  never  the  case  that  those  envisagements  of  the 
Divine  nature  are  fixed  and  stereotyped.  On  the  contrary 
they  are  fluid,  shifting,  often  in  a  way  interchangeable,  even 
though  they  are  so  strongly  distinguished.  Thus  the  supreme 
god  in  Anatolia  is  the  giver  of  signs  and  revealer  of  his  will, 
as  Zeus  Semanticus,  and  the  giver  of  corn  and  wine  and  the 
fruits  of  the  earth  and  all  things  good  and  beautiful,  as  Zeus 
Karpodotes  and  Zeus  Kalokagathios.  So  the  Lord  of 
Tarsus  holds  in  his  hands  the  corn  and  the  grapes,  which  at 
Ibriz  the  Peasant-God  bestows  upon  his  votaries.  The  work- 
ing god,  the  subordinate,  was  as  a  rule  conceived  as  the  son, 
the  supreme  god  as  the  father.  But  in  the  cycle  of  the  life 
of  the  gods,  the  father  is  the  son,  and  the  son  the  father. 
"  The  bull  is  the  father  of  the  serpent,  and  the  serpent  of 
the  bull " :  such  was  the  expression  in  the  Phrygian 
mysteries  ;  and  it  well  illustrates  the  element  abominated 
by  St.  Paul  as  the  cause  of  the  degradation  and  hatefulness 
of  the  popular  religion.  But,  in  spite  of  the  fluid  character 
of  these  Divine  ideas,  it  is  possible  in  a  certain  degree  to 
separate  them  and  to  contemplate  each  by  itself  in   the 


144 


1 1.    Tarsus 


Tarsian  religion  and  the  religion  of  south-western  Anatolia 
generally. 

We  distinguish  the  young  and  active  deity  in  a  figure 
of  thoroughly  Oriental  type,  common  on  Tarsian  coins 
throughout  Greek  and  Roman  times :  he  stands  on  a  winged 
and  horned  lion,  wearing  a  tall  pointed  head-dress,  with  bow- 
case  on  his  shoulder  and  sword  girt  at  his  side :  he  holds 
forward  his  right  hand,  often  with  a  branch  or  a  flower  in  it, 
while  with  his  left  he  grasps  a  double-headed  battleaxe. 


Fig.  II. — Reverse  of  coin  of  second  or  first  century  B.C.  The  god  "  of  the 
Tarsians "  on  winged  and  horned  lion.  Obverse :  head  of  the  City 
goddess. 

The  branch  marks  him  out  as  the  god  of  purification,  who 
teaches  the  ceremonies  and  rules  for  the  expiation  of  guilt 
and  the  cleansing  of  impurity.  The  flower  is  perhaps  the 
symbol  of  curative  power,  as  Mr.  J.  G.  Frazer  points  out. 
There  is  in  this  representation  much  that  suggests  an 
analogy  with  the  Greek  Apollo,  the  god  of  purification 
and  of  curative  power.     (See  Figs,  ii,  12.) 

This  representation  is  an  old  Anatolian  type,  untouched 
by  Greek  influence.  In  the  holy  chamber  at  Boghaz-Keui 
a  similar  young  god  is  represented  on  the  rock  wall  (Fig.  12). 


IX.    The  Religion  of  Tarsus 


145 


He  stands  immediately  behind  the  Goddess-mother,  as  she 
faces  the  supreme  god  in  the  ceremony  of  the  Holy  Marriage. 
It  caused  no  difficulty  to  the  ancient  mind  that  the  young 
god  was,  in  one  sense,  to  be  the  fruit  of  that  marriage ;  the 


Fig.  12. — Rock-sculpture  at  Boghaz-Keui, 

gods  are  always  living ;  they  are  always  with  us ;  yet  they 
are  born  and  they  die.  The  fluidity  and  impalpability  of  the 
ancient  conceptions  of  the  Divine  nature  cannot  be  bound 
down  by  logic  or  by  the  conditions  of  time.  The  Holy 
Marriage  takes  place  every  year :  it  is  in  a  sense  the  cause 

10 


146  II.    Tarsus 

and  the  guarantee  of  the  life  of  Nature.  But  the  gods  are 
outside  of  time,  symbolic,  ever  changing,  and  yet  ever  the 
same.  No  more  did  it  trouble  the  ancient  sense  of  morality 
that  the  young  god  is  also,  in  a  sense,  the  favourite  and 
paramour  of  the  Mother-goddess.  It  was  all  symbolic  of  the 
life  of  the  changing  year :  there  was  no  question  of  morality 
involved  originally,  though  such  questions  came  to  be  in- 
volved as  the  old  religious  ideas  and  rites  degenerated. 

The  resemblance  between  this  ancient  Anatolian  type  and 
the  representation  of  the  Tarsian  youthful  god  are  very 
marked.  There  are  indeed  certain  differences  in  detail. 
The  young  Tarsian  god  often  holds  in  his  right  hand  the 
same  flower,  which  at  Boghaz-Keui  is  carried  by  the  supreme 
god  who  stands  facing  the  Mother-goddess  in  the  Holy 
Marriage.  The  tall  head-dress  (like  that  of  the  modern 
Turkish  dervish  orders),  which  the  god  at  Boghaz-Keui  wears, 
is  very  much  shortened  in  the  Tarsian  type.  But  these  are 
unessential  changes.  The  curative  power  is  attributed  in  the 
one  case  to  the  Divine  father  (as  very  frequently  in  other 
parts  of  Anatolia  the  god  identified  with  the  Hellenic 
Zeus  was  regarded  as  the  healing  power),  and  in  the 
other  case  to  the  son.  It  might  equally  be,  and  often  was, 
assigned  to  the  Mother-goddess.  The  power  of  healing  was 
a  universal  Divine  attribute.  The  addition  of  the  bow  to  the 
equipment  of  the  young  god  at  Tarsus  may  be  due  to  change 
in  the  methods  of  war,  and  was  perhaps  made  in  the  Persian 
time.  It  will  be  observed  that  the  chin  of  the  god  at  Boghaz- 
Keui  is  very  short,  whereas  in  Greek  art  the  chin  was 
portrayed  much  more  strongly :  this  is  a  characteristic  of 
the  pre-Hellenic  art  on  the  plateau  of  Asia  Minor. 

It  is  highly  probable  that  one  of  those  two  old  Anatolian 
crods  of  Tarsus  was  called  Sandon,  and  the  other  Tarku; 


IX.    The  Religion  of  Tarsus  147 


but  it  is  necessary  to  guard  against  assigning  too  positively 
one  name  to  one  figure.     The  term   Disandan,  which  is  a 
variant  of  Sandon,  would  suggest  that   Zeus  and  Sandon 
corresponded  best  to  one  another,  and  that  Sandon  was  the 
envisagement  of  the  Divine  nature  as  fully  grown,  Tarku 
as  youthful.     But  it  must  always  be  remembered  that  these 
Divme  conceptions  pass  into  one  another  and  are  not  per- 
manently separate.     When   Ammianus,    xiv.  8,    says   that 
Tarsus  was  founded  by  Perseus  son  of  Danae  or  by  Sandan 
a  rich  noble  from  Aechium,  we  may  infer  that  the  story  in 
its  original  form  had  identified  Perseus  and  Sandon  as  the 
immigrant  hero  who  founded  Tarsus ;  and  this  implies  that 
Sandon  was  the  youthful  active  god.     Numerous  authorities 
mention  that  Heracles  was  identical  with  Sandon ;  and  we 
shall  find  ourselves  obliged  to  regard  the  Tarsian  Perseus 
and  Heracles  as  two  heroised  forms  of  the  same  Anatolian 
deity.     But  the  name   was,   in  the  ancient  conception,  an 
unimportant  detail :  the  Divine  names  shifted  and  changed 
in  a  most  perplexing  way,  just  as  did  the  attitude  in  which 
the  god  was  represented:  the  god  who  sits  above  all  as 
supreme  may  at  any  moment  become  energetic  as  the  Divine 
power  in  action,  and  be  represented  as  standing  and  putting 
his  power  into    activity  personally.     The   essential   matter 
was  the  Divine  nature  and  power  :  the  particulars  and  details 
were  non-essential  and  changeable.^^^ 

Both  Tarku  and  Sandon  (or  Sandes)  are  often  found  as 
elements  in  Cilician  personal  names. 

Archaeological  discovery  has  not  yet  began  to  throw  any 
light  on  old  Tarsian  religion  or  history.  The  large  unsightly 
mass  of  concrete  called  popularly  the  Tomb  of  Sardanapalus 
is,  according  to  the  architect  Koldewey,^!''  ^hg  core  of  the 
platform  that  supported  a  Roman  temple. 


148 


II.    Tarsus 


This  Tarsian  god  is  often  shown  on  coins  of  the  Roman 
Imperial  time  within  a  curious  structure,  which  most  pro- 
bably represents  a  portable  shrine.  It  is  a  pyramidal  struc- 
ture resting  on  a  broad  platform,  and  the  god  on  his  lion 
stands  upon  the  pedestal  inside  the  pyramidal  covering. 
On  the  top  of  the  pyramid  often  perches  the  divine  eagle. 
Sometimes  the  pyramid  is  shaded  by  a  semicircular  canopy 
supported  by  two  young  beardless  men  wearing  tunics :  the 


Fig.  13. — Coins  of  Tarsus  Metropolis,  struck  under  Marcus  Aurelius, 
161-180  A.D.,  and  under  Decius,  249-251  a.d.  The  god  as  he  was  borne 
through  the  streets  to  the  funeral  ceremony. 

men  stand  on  the  platform  on  which  the  structure  rests. 
(See  Figs.  13  and  21.) 

This  quaint  representation  must  probably  be  regarded  as 
an  attempt  to  show  in  the  small  space  of  a  coin  a  large 
erection,  which  was  a  feature  in  an  annual  procession  in 
honour  of  the  god.  Some  of  the  coins  attempt,  and  some 
do  not  attempt,  to  show  the  human  beings,  doubtless  young 
men  chosen  from  the  city,  who  bore  a  canopy  over  the  holy 
structure.  The  whole  was  carried  through  the  streets  on 
a  great  platform  ;  and  we  must  presume  that  it  was  drawn 
by  animals  or  by  a  train  of  devotees. 


IX.    The  Religion  of  Tarsus  149 

Now  there  was  a  festival  at  Tarsus,  in  which  the  burning 
of  a  pyre  was  the  chief  ceremony ;  and  this  took  place  in 
honour  of  a  god,  whom  Dion  Chrysostom  calls  Heracles. 
The  pyre  was  constructed  for  the  occasion,  and  the  god 
was  burned  in  it  as  the  crowning  scene  of  the  ceremonial. 
The  periodic  burning  of  the  god  represented  his  translation 
to  heaven.22  The  eagle,  which  bore  the  Trojan  Ganymede 
to  heaven,  perched  on  the  apex  of  the  pyramid  in  the  Tarsian 
rite.  We  are  therefore  forced  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
image  of  the  god,  as  it  was  borne  through  the  streets  to  this 
pyre,  the  centre  of  one  of  the  greatest  Tarsian  religious 
festivals,  was  the  object  so  often  represented  on  the  coins  of 
the  city. 

The  character  of  this  deity,  the  weapons  which  he  carries, 
and  his  death  on  a  funeral  pyre,  all  combined  to  force  on 
the  Greeks  the  identification  with  their  own  Heracles.  This 
they  could  not  possibly  avoid.  The  Tarsian  deity  is  on  the 
coins  generally  draped  in  a  long  tunic  reaching  to  the  feet, 
but  sometimes  nude.  The  former  appearance  may  be  taken 
as  true  to  the  actual  religious  presentation  ;  the  latter  is  a 
Greek  touch,  helping  to  make  out  the  analogy  with  Heracles. 
At  the  same  time  the  analogies  with  Apollo,  which  have 
been  already  pointed  out,  made  it  quite  possible  also  to 
identify  this  Tarsian  deity  with  Apollo.  The  fluid,  wavering 
religious  fancy  of  the  Greeks  saw  no  difficulty  in  the  double 
identification. 

These  two  figures,  the  Lord  of  Tarsus  and  the  Sandon  of 
Tarsus,  we  take  as  primitive  Anatolian,  part  of  the  oldest 
religion  of  the  city,  which  lasted  through  all  stages  of  history 
with  little  alteration  until  the  Christian  period,  different 
gods,  yet  in  reality  only  two  envisagements  of  the  one 
ultimate  deity,  regarded  as  male. 


I50 


1 1.    Tarsus 


The  great  number  and  variety  of  representations  of 
Heracles  on  coins  of  Tarsus  and  other  cities  of  south-eastern 
Anatolia  may  all  be  interpreted  through  the  play  of  Greek 
artistic  fancy  with  the  type  of  the  young  Anatolian  deity. 
They  appear  in  all  periods  from  the  beginning  of  the  fourth 


Fig.  14. — Coin  of  Tarsus  Metropolis,  struck  under  Gordian  III.,  238-242  a.d. 
Archaic  image  of  Apollo  on  a  tall  column  ;  in  front,  an  altar  with  bull 
lying  before  it.     Perseus  and  the  City  goddess  adoring.     (See  p.  154.) 

century  BC.  downwards.  This  was  the  favourite  Hellenisa- 
tion  of  ihe  native  god,  but  not  by  any  means  the  only  one. 
Although  no  early  representation  of  him  is  known,  we 
must  recognise  a  god  of  the  early  Ionian  settlers  in  an 
Apollo  of  archaic  character,  who  often  appears  on  coins  of 


IX.    The  Religion  of  Tarsus  151 


the  Imperial  time,  a  nude  figure  grasping  in  his  hands,  one 
by  the  forelegs  and  one  by  the  ears,  two  dogs  (or  wolves, 
perhaps),  which  hang  down  to  the  ground  on  each  side  of 
him.  Representations  of  Artemis  and  Apollo  of  this  type 
were  common  in  archaic  Greek  times.  They  are  rather 
pre-Hellenic  and  Oriental  than  Hellenic  in  character,  and 
are  peculiarly  suitable  to  a  really  pre-Hellenic  people  such 
as  the  old  lonians  were. 

The  animals  which  Apollo  holds  are  usually  regarded 
as  wolves,  and  the  god  is  styled  Lykeios,  the  Wolf-god, 
by  the  numismatists.  But  it  is  evident  that  in  the  Hellenistic 
period  the  animals  were  considered  to  be  dogs,  for  Lycophron 
calls  the  two  prophets  Mopsus  and  Amphilochus,  "the  dogs 
of  Apollo ".  The  poet  adopted  a  popular  identification  of 
the  two  Apolline  prophets  with  the  two  animals  whom  the 
god  grasps  in  his  hands. 

We  shall  probably  not  err,  if  we  regard  this  Apollo  of 
the  old  lonians  as  the  Apollo  with  the  trident,  whom  Dion 
Chrysostom  mentions  in  his  first  Tarsian  Oration.  The 
Tarsian  Apollo,  as  the  god  ot  a  sea-faring  people,  bore  the 
trident  of  Poseidon  the  sea-god.  The  life  and  ways  of  a 
people  were  thus  envisaged  in  their  conception  and  repre- 
sentation of  their  god.  In  their  god  they  saw  themselves, 
their  own  life  and  their  own  experience.  They  regarded 
this  Apollo  as  the  Divine  founder  of  the  city,  its  hereditary 
god  (Patroos)  and  its  helper  (Boethos)  :  see  below,  p.  156. 

It  may  be  assumed  as  highly  probable  that  this  old 
Ionian  Apollo,  the  god  of  the  Clarian  Oracle,  who  had 
guided  the  migration  by  his  advice  and  led  it  to  the  Cilician 
coast-lands  across  the  sea  which  he  ruled  with  his  trident, 
was  brought  into  connection  with  the  old  Anatolian  ritual 
of  Tarsus  by  identification  with  the  native  god  of  purification 


152 


II.    Tarsus 


and  healing  power  (which  is  always  regarded  as  a  form  of 
prophetic  interpretation).  We  have  no  direct  proof  of  this, 
as  we  have  no  ancient  representation  of  this  Tarsian  Apollo  ; 
but  the  facts  speak  for  themselves.  Just  as,  in  the  example 
at  Athens,  quoted  on  p.  138,  Poseidon  the  god  of  an  immi- 
grant race  was  introduced  into  the  old  native  worship  of 
the  goddess  Athena  by  identification  with  a  Divine  being  of 
the  entourage  of  Athena,  so  at  Tarsus  the  god  of  the  immi- 


Fio.  15. — Coin  of  Hadriana  Tarsus,  struck  about  120-180  a.d.  Perseus 
holding  on  his  extended  right  hand  the  archaic  image  of  Apollo  Boethos 
(as  in  Fig.  14).  The  hero  wears  the  chlamys  and  holds  the  bent  knife 
called  harpe.     The  Tarsian  emblem,  lion  attacking  bull,  as  in  Fig.  4. 

grant  lonians  was  identified  with  the  native  god  of  similar 
character. 

Moreover,  the  Tarsian  Apollo  is  on  the  coins  brought  into 
close  relation  with  another  impersonation  of  the  native  god, 
viz.,  Perseus.  It  is  a  common  thing  in  religious  myth  to 
connect  with  the  god  a  hero,  who  is  really  a  sort  of  repetition 
of  the  god  on  a  lower  plane  nearer  the  level  of  human 
nature :  so  e.g.,  Heracles  varies  in  the  Greek  conception 
between  a  god  and  a  hero.  All  the  numerous  representa- 
tions of  the  hero  Perseus  on  coins  of  the  south-eastern  region 


IX.    The  Religion  of  Tarsus 


153 


of  Asia  Minor  are  probably  to  be  taken  in  connection  with 
this  young  native  god.  Perseus  is  the  immigrant  hero,  who 
is  connected  artificially  with  the  older  religion  of  the  country. 
He  represents  a  new  people  and  a  new  power.  In  him 
probably  are  united  features  both  of  Persian  and  of  Greek 
character ;  but  the  Greek  element  seems  to  predominate 
strongly.  He  comes  from  the  side  of  the  sea  ;  he  is  specially 
connected  with  Argive  legend  ;  but  he  comes  also  as  the 
horseman,  who  crosses  the  sea  by  flying  over  it.     It  may  be 


Fio.  16. — Coin  of  Tarsus  Metropolis,  First,  Greatest,  Loveliest,  struck 
under  Gordian  III.,  238-242  a.d.  Fisherman  showing  a  large  fish  to 
Perseus ;  the  hero  in  usual  attitude  with  harpe  and  chlamys. 

supposed  that  a  religious  envisagement  which  gave  mythical 
justification  to  the  Persian  rule  by  connecting  a  Persian  hero 
with  the  native  religion,  was  caught  up  by  the  later  Greek 
colonists  in  the  Seleucid  period  and  Hellenised  so  far  that 
little  was  left  of  the  Persian  idea.  We  conclude  therefore 
that  the  native  Tarsian  god  in  his  heroised  form  was  identi- 
fied with  Perseus  by  the  Greeks  of  the  later  Hellenistic 
Tarsus.  The  Anatolian  Perseus  is  the  mythical  envisage- 
ment of  the  intruding  population,  which  gave  religious  legali- 
sation to  its  settlement  by  this  religious  fiction. 


154  II-    Tarsus 

This  explanation  of  the  nature  of  the  East  Anatoh'an 
Perseus  will  be  found  to  suit  his  character  in  Iconium,  where 
also  he  is  an  important  figure,  and  (as  I  believe)  in  other 
places. 

Now  the  coins  of  Tarsus  often  show  Perseus  in  close 
connection  with  the  old  Ionian  Apollo.  In  Fig.  15  he  stands 
holding  on  his  extended  right  hand  the  statue  of  Apollo. 
Similar  examples  are  common,  in  which  a  god  envisaged  in 
a  later  form  bears  his  own  image  in  a  more  archaic  embodi- 


FiG.  17. — Coin  struck  by  the  satrap  Tiribazus,  386-380  B.C.  Ahura-mazda 
rising  from  the  winged  solar  disk.  The  god  carries  in  his  hands  a  garland 
and  a  lotos-flower. 

ment,  or  stands  beside  it  (see  e.g.  the  Cities  and  Bishoprics 
of  Phrygia,  ii.,  p.  692  f.).  The  obverse  of  this  coin  bears 
the  head  of  Heracles,  so  that  the  coin  brings  together  the 
three  connected  Divine  figures,  Perseus,  Apollo,  and  Heracles- 
Sandon.  In  Fig.  14  Perseus  is  represented  at  an  altar 
performing  a  ceremony  of  the  ritual  of  Apollo,  whose  image 
is  raised  on  a  lofty  column.  Opposite  Perseus  is  the  City 
goddess,  extending  both  hands  towards  the  image  of  the 
god.  The  subject  is  perhaps  the  initial  stage  of  a  sacrifice  to 
he  god  in  presence  of  the  Tarsian  people  (indicated  by  two 


IX.    The  Religion  of  Tarsus  155 

men  behind  the  ahar,  and  the  goddess  of  the  city).  The  ox 
which  is  to  be  sacrificed  waits  placidly  beside  the  altar;  it 
was  a  good  omen  that  the  victim  should  show  no  reluctance 
and  offer  no  resistance. 

The  quaint  device  of  Perseus  and  the  fisherman  (Fig.  16) 
is  perhaps  a  representation  of  some  unrecorded  Tarsian 
legend  about  the  hero  ;  but  probably  it  indicates  only  that 
fisheries  were  an  important  source  of  revenue  at  Tarsus,  just 
as  a  merchant-vessel  is  represented  on  the  coins  of  a  city 
that  possessed  a  harbour  and  sea-borne  trade.     The  fisher- 


FiG.  18. — Coin  of  Tarsus  Metropolis.,  First,  Greatest,  Loveliest,  struck 
under  Gordian  III,,  238-242  a.d.  Mithras  with  raised  dagger  about  to 
slay  a  bull. 

man  is  associated  with  Perseus  on  the  coins,  because  that 
hero  was  brought  up  by  a  fisherman,  and  the  Tarsian  pre- 
sents his  fish  to  the  Divine  personage  who  is  most  favour- 
able to  his  craft. 

A  variation  of  this  type,  struck  about  A.D.  230,  shows  the 
fisherman  and  Perseus  in  reversed  position ;  and  Perseus 
holds  up  on  his  left  hand  the  archaic  image  of  Apollo  with 
his  two  dogs  (or  wolves).  An  inscription  adds  Apollo's  title 
Patroos.     The  epithet  Patroos,  god  of  our  fathers  and  our 


156  II.    Tarsus 

fatherland,  was  peculiarly  appropriate  to  the  old  lonnia 
Apollo,  and  was  frequently  given  to  Apollo  by  the  Greeks. 
The  other  epithet  Boethos,  the  Helper,  taken  in  conjunction 
with  this,  proves  that  special  sanctity  and  veneration  be- 
longed to  Apollo  in  Tarsus,  as  the  god  of  the  city,  its  founder 
and  its  ever  present  aid.^^* 

How  far  Persian  influe  nee  exercised  any  permanent  effect 
on  Tarsus,  it  is  impossible  to  say ;  but  it  has  left  few  traces 
that  we  can  discern.  The  numerous  coins  struck  by  Persian 
satraps  during  the  fourth  century  show  little  distinctively 
Persian  character :  but  they  certainly  show  that  the  Asiatic 
spirit  grew  more  pow .  ul  in  Tarsus  under  their  rule,  and 
the  Hellenic  tone  grew  weaker.  As  was  shown  in  §  VII., 
they  were  Oriental  with  a  touch  of  Persian  (some  few  cases 
of  Greek  types  being  due  to  exceptional  circumstances). 

One  type,  however,  is  thoroughly  Persian.  The  Persian 
deity  Ahura-mazda  (or  Ormuzd)  appears  on  Tarsian  coins 
struck  under  the  satrap  Tiribazus  about  386-380  B.C.  (Fig. 
17).  He  has  the  body  of  a  man  terminating  below  in  the 
broad  winged  solar  disk ;  he  carries  a  wreath  in  the  right 
hand,  and  a  flower  in  the  left.  The  type  on  the  obverse 
of  this  coin  is  the  ordinary  representation  of  the  Lord  of 
Tarsus  with  his  title  in  Aramaic  letters.  We  cannot  doubt 
that  the  intention  is  to  express  the  equivalence  of  the  two 
Divine  forms  :  he  who  to  the  Tarsians  is  Baal  is  to  the 
Persian  Ahura-mazda,  a  veiy  chaiacteristic  pagan  view. 

Mithras  appears  in  the  third  century  after  Christ  on  a 
coin  of  Gordian  HI.  ;  but,  though  of  Persian  origin,  this 
deity  cannot  be  regarded  as  introduced  by  the  Persians. 
He  appears  in  Tarsus  under  Roman  official  influence,  as  the 
god  of  the  army  and  of  the  anti-Christian  Empire  (Fig. 
18). 


X.    The  Revival  of  Greek  Influence  157 


§  X.    The  Revival  of  Greek  Influence. 

In  a  sense  this  revival  begins  with  the  entrance  of  Alex- 
ander the  Great  into  Tarsus  in  334  B.C.  We  cannot  doubt 
that  this  event  strengthened  the  influence  and  numbers  of 
the  Greek  element,  which  under  the  Persian  rule  was  appar- 
ently in  process  of  being  slowly  eradicated.  Yet  the  revival 
of  the  Greek  Tarsus  was  very  slow.  It  is  not  even  certain, 
though  it  is  probable,  that  coins  with  the  types  of  Alexander 
the  Great  were  struck  at  Tarsus.  At  any  rate  no  coins 
seem  to  have  been  struck  by  Tarsus  as  a  city  during  the 
later  fourth  or  the  third  century.  Freedom  and  autonomy 
did  not  fall  at  that  time  to  the  lot  of  Tarsus.  It  was 
evidently  regarded  by  the  Greek  kings  as  an  Oriental 
town,  unfitted  for  the  autonomy  that  belonged  to  a  Greek 
polis. 

Cilicia  was  subject  throughout  the  fourth  century  to  the 
Greek  kings  of  Syria  of  the  Seleucid  dynasty;  and  those 
kings  were  much  influenced  in  their  policy  by  Oriental 
fashions.  They  administered  the  outlying  provinces  through 
officers  who  bore  the  Persian  title  of  Satrap  ;  and  they  were 
not  disposed  to  encourage  generally  within  their  Empire 
the  development  of  Greek  autonomy  with  the  accompany- 
ing freedom  of  spirit  and  conduct.  Wherever  the  growth  of 
an  autonomous  city  in  the  Seleucid  Empire  can  be  traced, 
its  origin  is  found  to  lie  in  the  needs  of  the  central  govern- 
ment, requiring  a  strong  garrison  city  in  a  district  which 
was  threatened.  In  such  cities  the  Seleucid  kings  planted 
new  colonies  of  strangers  and  foreigners.  The  interests  of 
these  strangers  lay  in  maintaining  the  Seleucid  power,  to 
which  they  owed  their  privileges  and  their  favoured  position 
in  their  new  country. 


158  II.    Tarsus 

It  is  unnecessary  here  to  describe  the  way  in  which  those 
Seleucid  garrison  cities  were  organised  :  that  has  been  done 
sufficiently  in  the  Lettei's  to  the  Seven  Churches,  chapter  xi. 
A  right  understanding  of  their  character  is  essential  to  a 
correct  appreciation  of  the  society  in  the  Eastern  Provinces 
during  the  Roman  period — the  society  in  which  the  Chris- 
tian churches  of  Asia  Minor  took  their  origin.  Without  a 
thorough  study  of  those  Hellenistic  cities,  the  student  of 
early  Christian  history  of  Asia  Minor  has  his  view  inevitably 
distorted  to  a  serious  degree  by  preconceptions  and  pre- 
judices, derived  from  the  classical  Greek  period  and  other 
causes.  Almost  every  city  that  plays  an  important  part  in 
the  early  Chris' ian  history  was  founded,  or  at  least  refounded 
and  increased  in  population,  by  a  Seleucid  or  other  monarch 
from  one  or  another  of  the  various  dynasties  that  ruled  over 
parts  of  Asia  Minor. 

The  cities  are  easily  recognised  as  a  rule  by  their  names, 
which  were  almost  always  derived  from  some  member  of  the 
royal  family :  Antiocheia,  Seleuceia,  Apameia,  Laodiceia, 
appear  with  extraordinary  frequency  all  over  the  Seleucid 
Empire.  In  some  cases  the  new  dynastic  name  soon  fell 
into  disuse,  and  the  old  native  name  revived,  showing  that 
certain  cities  which  had  a  great  early  history,  clung  to  their 
identity  with  real  Greek  municipal  pride.  Tarsus  was  one 
of  this  class.  Coins  prove  that  for  a  time  it  bore  the  name 
of  Antioch-on-the-Cydnus.  But  the  pride  of  birth  and  past 
history  among  the  Tarsians  maintained  the  individuality 
and  continuity  of  the  city;  the  new  citizens,  filled  with  a 
sense  of  its  dignity  and  honour,  soon  made  themselves  a 
real  part  of  the  ancient  city  ;  and  the  new  name  was  quickly 
disused. 


XI.    Tarsus  as  the  Greek  Colony  Antiocheia     159 

§  XI.    Tarsus  as  the  Greek  Colony  Antiocheia. 

During  the  third  century  Cilicia  lay  near  the  centre  of  the 
Seleucid  Empire,  which  extended  far  beyond  it  westwards 
to  include  Lycaonia,  Phrygia  and  parts  of  Lydia  (during 
part  of  the  century  down  even  to  the  Aegean  coasts).  In 
this  period  Cilicia  was  the  helpless  slave  of  the  dynasty ;  no 
danger  was  to  be  apprehended  from  it ;  and  there  was  no 
reason  to  make  any  of  its  towns  into  garrison  cities.  Accord- 
ingly, none  of  the  Cilician  cities  struck  autonomous  coins 
during  the  third  century  :  the  imperial  Seleucid  money  was 
the  only  coinage. 

The  peace  of  189  B.C.  inaugurated  new  conditions  in  Asia 
Minor.  Lydia,  Phrygia  and  Lycaonia  were  taken  from  the 
Seleucid  king  Antiochus  the  Great ;  the  Taurus  was  now 
made  the  limit  of  his  Empire  ;  and  Cilicia  became  a  frontier 
country.  It  was  not  long  till  these  new  conditions  began 
to  produce  their  inevitable  effect.  The  Cilician  cities,  espe- 
cially those  of  the  western  half  of  the  country,  could  not 
but  feel  conscious  of  their  growing  influence.  They  saw  that 
across  the  frontier  on  the  north-west  there  was  a  much  treer 
country,  subject  only  to  the  mild  Pergamenian  rule,  and 
barely  to  that,  for  Lycaonia  was  so  distant  from  Pergamum 
that  the  kings  could  not  exercise  real  authority  over  it. 
The  very  sight"  and  neighbourhood  of  freedom  in  others 
produces  an  ennobling  effect ;  and  we  cannot  doubt  that 
some  of  the  Tarsians  after  their  long  hopeless  slavery  began 
now  to  remember  that  their  city  had  once  been  great,  ener- 
getic and  free. 

These  changed  conditions  resulted  at  last  in  the  reorgani- 
sation of  Tarsus  as  an  autonomous  state  striking  its  own 
coinacre.      This  is  a  decisive   event  for  the  whole   future 


i6o 


1 1.    Tarsus 


history  of  the  city.  The  evidence,  therefore,  must  be  care- 
fully scrutinised.  Fortunately,  a  brief  reference  in  2  Mac- 
cabees iv.  30  f ,  36,  when  taken  in  connection  with  the  rest 
of  the  evidence  bearing  on  this  subject,  enables  us  to  restore 
with  practical  certainty  the  date  and  circumstances  in  which 
the  change  was  brought  about. 

In  the  first  place  we  notice  that  the  new  name,  under 
which  Tarsus  began  its  autonomous  career,  was  Antiocheia- 


FiG.  19. — Coin  of  Antiocheia-on-the-Cydnus  with  the  head  of  the  City  goddess 
wearing  turreted  crown.     Reverse  :  Hellenic  Zeus  sitting ;  city  name. 


on-the-Cydnus.  It  was,  therefore,  refounded  by  a  king 
named  Antiochus.  The  coins  were  struck  under  Anti- 
ochus  IV.  Epiphanes,^^  and,  therefore,  the  name  must  have 
been  given  either  in  his  reign,  175-164  B.C.,  or  in  that  of 
his  father,  Antiochus  III.  the  Great,  between  the  peace  of 
189  and  his  death  in  187.  It  is  quite  improbable  that 
the  effect  of  the  changed  conditions  would  be  realised  in 
Cilicia  and  at  the  court  of  Antiochus  within  so  short  a 
time  as  two  years,  189-187:  moreover,  if  the  refoundation 
of  Tarsus  as  Antiocheia  took  place  during  those  two  years, 
it  might  reasonably  be  expected  that  coins  struck  under 


XL    Tarsus  as  the  Gi^eek  Colony  Antiocheia     i6i 

the  founder  or  his  son  Seleucus   IV.,    187-175,  would   be 
known.  2* 

The  fair  and  reasonable  conclusion  is  that  the  refoundation 
took  place  under  Antiochus  IV.  Epiphanes,  175-164  B.C., 
and  that  it  was  followed  at  once,  and  as  it  were  ratified,  by 
the  issue  of  coins,  which  demonstrated  to  all  the  world  the 
existence  of  this  new  city.  It  requiied  about  fifteen  or 
twenty  years  till  the  effect  of  the  changed  relations  between 
Cilicia  and  the  Seleucid  Empire  caused  by  the  peace  of 
189  became  obvious  and  demanded  a  change  in  the  dynastic 
policy.  The  coins  are  quite  Hellenic  in  character.  The 
autonomy  of  the  city  is  symbolised  by  the  City  goddess. 
The  Greek  Zeus  takes  the  place  of  the  Oriental  Baal  on  the 
reverse,  and  carries  none  of  the  Oriental  symbols,  which 
appear  on  the  coins  of  the  Persian  time. 

All  this  is  so  natural,  and  follows  so  plainly  from  the  facts 
and  coins,  that  it  might  have  been  stated  in  a  sentence  as 
self-evident,  were  it  not  for  the  rigid  and  almost  hostile 
scrutiny  to  which  ever3'thing  is  subjected  that  bears,  how- 
ever remotely,  on  the  books  of  the  New  Testament  and  on 
St.  Paul. 

In  the  second  place  we  turn  to  2  Maccabees  iv.  30  f.,  36. 
About  171  B.C.,  "they  of  Tarsus  and  Mallos  made  insurrec- 
tion, because  they  were  given  to  the  king's  concubine,  called 
Antiochis.25  Then  came  the  king  in  all  haste  to  appease 
matters."  ..."  And  when  the  king  was  come  again  from 
the  places  about  Cilicia,"  etc 

It  was  quite  a  regular  practice  under  the  Persian  kings 
(and  doubtless  long  before  the  Persian  Empire  began)  for 
the  monarch  to  give  to  his  favourites  the  lordship  and  taxes 
of  some  town  or  towns  in  his  dominions.  This  Oriental  way 
was  followed  by  Antiochus  IV.  in  regard  to  Tarsus  and 

II. 


i62  II.    Tarsus 

Mallos:  we  have  already  pointed  out  that  various  other 
Oriental  customs  persisted  under  the  Seleucid  kings.  It  is 
clear  that  those  two  cities  were  not  autonomous,  otherwise 
Antiochus  could  not  have  bestowed  them  on  Antiochis.  It 
is  equally  clear  from  the  resistance  which  was  offered,  that 
the  cities  were  no  longer  mere  unresisting,  slavish  Oriental 
towns,  resigned  to  live  under  the  heel  and  the  all-powerful 
will  of  a  despot.  In  the  third  century,  so  far  as  we  can 
judge,  the  word  of  the  king  had  been  the  law  in  Cilicia,  and 
the  Cilician  towns  would  necessru'ily  have  accepted  their  fate, 
which  after  all  was  not  likely  to  be  worse  under  Antiochis 
than  under  Antiochus :  there  is  no  appearance  that  cities 
given  in  this  fashion  by  a  king  were  worse  off  than  their 
neighbours.  But  now,  in  171  B.C.,  the  Greek  spirit  of  freedom 
was  reviving.  Those  two  cities  were  precisely  the  two  old 
Greek  settlements  in  Cilicia,  according  to  the  view  already 
stated  ;  and  that  view  makes  the  action  which  now  followed 
seem  quite  natural.^^  The  Greek  spirit  revolted  against  the 
indignity  of  being  handed  over  at  the  caprice  of  a  despot 
to  be  the  private  propeity  of  a  woman.  Mutiny  broke  out, 
and  became  so  dangerous  that  the  king  had  to  intervene  in 
person. 

Another  remarkable  feature  about  this  incident  is,  that 
there  was  no  thought  in  the  king's  mind — on  this  point  the 
very  clear  statement  is  conclusive' — of  military  force  or  com- 
pulsion to  be  exercised  against  the  two  cities.  The  king  saw 
at  once  that  it  was  a  case  for  arrangement  and  diplomacy. 
He  went  "  in  all  haste  to  appease  matters  ".  Arguing  from 
the  facts  stated  above,  we  must  infer  that  the  new  condi- 
tions in  Cilicia  had  already  attracted  his  attention ;  and  he 
had  recognised  that  he  had  gone  too  far,  and  that  he  must 
strengthen  the  feeling  of  friendliness  in  Cilicia  to  himself 


XI.    Tarsus  as  the  Greek  Colony  Antiocheia     163 

and  his  dynasty  by  conceding  something  to  the  claims  of 
the  cities :  we  must  also  infer  that  he  saw  at  once  what  form 
his  action  must  take,  and  that  he  proceeded  to  get  the  con- 
sent of,  and  arrange  terms  with,  the  two  cities. 

Following  the  account  which  has  been  stated  above  as  to 
the  methods  of  Seleucid  policy,  we  can  therefore  say  with 
confidence  that  a  compromise  was  arrived  at  Tarsus  was 
recognised  as  a  self-governing  city,  but  a  body  of  new 
citizens,  who  owed  their  privileges  to  the  king  and  were 
likely  to  be  loyal  to  him,  was  added  to  the  population. 
Tarsus  now  obtained  the  right  to  strike  coins,  the  symbol 
of  municipal  independence  and  proof  of  autonomy;  and 
it  received  the  new  name  Antiocheia-on-the-Cydnus,  in  re- 
cognition of  its  loyalty.  This  name,  however,  lasted  only  a 
few  years,  till  the  death  of  Antiochus. 

It  has  a  distinct  bearing  on  this  subject  that  Antiochus 
made  sweeping  reforms  and  changes  in  other  Cilician  towns. 
Alexandria-near-Issus  begun  at  this  time  to  strike  autonom- 
ous coins ;  and  Adana,  Aegeae,  Hieropolis-on-the-Pyramus 
and  Mopsouestia  all  were  permitted  to  strike  coins  with  the 
effigy  of  Antiochus  IV.  on  the  obverse,  but  with  their  own 
types  and  names  on  the  reverse— a  privilege  beyond  what 
they  had  before  possessed,  though  much  less  honourable 
than  the  purely  autonomous  coinage  which  was  permitted  at 
Tarsus  and  Alexandria-near-Issus.  Adana  was  honoured 
with  the  name  Antiocheia-on-the-Sarus,  but  this  more  purely 
Oriental  city  did  not  receive  such  a  degree  of  freedom  and 
self-governent  as  Tarsus. 

Mopsouestia,  at  the  crossing  of  the  Pyramus,  on  the  one 
great  road  leading  from  east  to  west  across  Cilicia,  occupied 
a  peculiarly  important  position,  yet  one  in  which  it  could 
never  become  a  great  city.     It  was  not  strong  defensively 


164  n.    Tarsus 

and  yet  it  must  inevitably  be  defended  and  attacked  in 
every  war  that  occurred  for  the  mastery  of  Cilicia.  It  barred 
the  road;  but  it  was  too  weak  in  situation  to  bar  it  effectively. 
When,  after  189  B.C.,  the  kings  began  to  recognise  that  they 
must  study  and  prepare  to  defend  Cilicia  more  carefully 
than  in  the  previous  century,  this  guardian  city  of  the  road 
had  been  the  first  to  attract  attention.  Seleucus  IV,, 
187-175,  perceived  its  importance,  and  called  it  Seleuceia- 
on-the-P)'ramus.  The  bestowal  of  this  name  implies  a 
certain  honour  and  privilege,  which  we  cannot  specify.  It 
did  not  apparently  carry  the  right  of  autonomous  coinage,  but 
beyond  all  question  it  was  accompanied  by  a  strengthening 
of  the  fortifications  and  improvement  of  the  roads  beside  the 
bridge  and  the  city.  Under  Antiochus  IV.  Epiphanes, 
175-164,  this  new  city  struck  legal  coins  on  the  same  foot- 
ing as  Adana,  Aegeae,  and  Hieropolis  ;  the  coins  at  first 
bore  the  name  of  Seleuceia-on-the-Pyramus,  but  quickly 
the  old  name  reappeared,  and  even  before  Antiochus  died  the 
coins  began  to  resume  the  name  of  Mopsus. 

It  would  illuminate  this  subject  further,  if  the  action  of 
Antiochus  at  Mallos  could  be  certainly  determined.  A  city 
named  Antiocheia  was  founded  at  Magarsus  or  at  Mallos, 
but  the  exact  situation  of  this  new  city,  and  the  relation  of 
Mallos  to  Magarsus,  are  uncertain  ;  probably  Magarsus  was 
simply  the  port-town  of  Mallos,  and  the  relation  between 
the  two  was  as  intimate  and  to  us  as  obscure  as  that  be- 
tween Notion  and  Colophon  or  between  Athens  and  Piraeus. 
It  is  certain  that  Mallos  was  treated  far  less  generously 
than  Tarsus.  Mallos  was  more  remote  from  the  frontier, 
and  less  important,  than  Tarsus ;  perhaps  also  the  Greek 
element,  always  prone  to  discontent  and  mutiny,  was  too 
strong  there  ^^ ;  and  Mallos  sank  into  insignificance  during 


XII.    The  Greeks  in  Tarsus — Antiocheia     165 


this  period,  reviving  again  to  a  small  degree  in  numismatic 
history  about  146  B.C.  It  seems  highly  probable  that  Antioch 
on  the  Pyramus,  like  those  on  the  Cydnus  and  the  Saru^;, 
was  founded  by  Antiochus  Epiphanes  at  this  time  as  part  of 
his  scheme  for  pacifying  and  reorganising  Cilicia.  It  is 
possible  that  this  new  city  was  founded  at  Magarsus  with  the 
intention  of  depreciating  and  ruining  Mallos. 

This  long  survey  of  the  facts  has  been  necessary  in  order 
to  prove  conclusively  the  importance  of  the  epoch  of  re- 
organisation about  175-170.  Cilicia  was  then  recast,  and 
its  cities  were  reinvigorated.  New  life  was  breathed  into 
a  country  which  for  centuries  had  been  plunged  in  Oriental- 
ism and  ruled  by  despotism.  But,  of  all  the  cities,  Tarsus 
was  treated  most  honourably  (setting  aside  Alexandria  as 
unimportant).  It  now  stands  forth  as  the  principal  city 
of  the  whole  country,  with  the  fullest  rights  of  self-govern- 
ment and  coinage  permitted  to  any  town  in  the  Seleucid 
Empire.  The  Tarsus  of  St.  Paul  dates  in  a  very  real  sense 
from  the  refoundation  by  Antiochus  Epiphanes. 

Now  at  last  Tarsus  had  the  status  of  an  autonomous  city, 
choosing  its  own  magistrates  and  makino-  its  own  lawsi 
though  doubtless  subject  in  all  foreign  relations  to  the  king. 
For  its  future  history  much  depended  on  the  new  citizens 
and  the  terms  of  the  new  constitution ;  and  we  must  ask 
what  evidence  there  is  as  to  them. 

§  XII.  The  Greeks  in  Tarsus— Antiocheia. 
The  events  in  Cilicia  in  171  B.C.,  described  in  the  previous 
section  of  this  study,  introduced  a  new  period  in  the  history 
of  Tarsus.  It  was  henceforth  a  Greek  City-State,  govern- 
ing itself  in  all  internal  matters  through  its  own  elective 
magistrates,  and   exercising  certain  sovereign   rights   such 


1 66  II.    Tarsus 

as  the  striking  of  its  own  autonomous  coins.  In  various 
respects,  and  especially  in  all  relations  to  foreign  states 
Tarsus  undoubtedly  must  have  been  subject  to  the  Seleucid 
kings:  that  was  a  necessity  of  the  Empire.  The  relation  of 
a  free  city  such  as  Tarsus  now  was,  to  the  central  govern- 
ment of  the  Seleucid  Empire  is,  however,  quite  obscure ; 
and  until  some  of  the  cities  of  this  class  are  excavated  and 
the  whole  subject  carefully  studied,  it  is  impossible  to 
speak  about  details. 

For  our  present  purposes  it  is  extremely  important  to 
determine  what  was  the  character  of  the  constituent  popu- 
lation of  the  free  city  of  Tarsus.  It  would  consist  of  the 
former  population  together  with  a  certain  body  of  new 
citizens,  introduced  in  the  manner  and  for  the  purpose 
already  described.  All  that  can  be  learned  or  conjectured 
about  the  older  population  has  been  already  stated  in  the 
preceding  sections.  It  now  remains  to  ask  what  evidence 
can  be  found  as  to  the  citizens  introduced  in  171-170  B.C. 

It  has  been  shown -^  that  in  their  colonial  foundations 
the  Seleucid  kings  were  obliged  to  trust  mainly  to  two 
peoples,  the  Greeks  and  the  Jews,  "  to  manage,  to  lead,  to 
train  the  rude  Oriental  peasantry  in  the  arts  on  which 
city-life  must  rest,  to  organise  and  utilise  their  labour  and 
create  a  commercial  system  ".  This  class  of  colonists  was 
even  more  necessary  than  soldiers  in  those  colonies. 

The  Greeks  in  those  Hellenic  foundations  of  Asia  Minor 
were  drawn  from  very  diverse  sources.  The  coins,  which 
are  our  chief  authority,  mention  Achaeans  at  Eumeneia, 
Dorians  and  lonians  at  Synnada,  Macedonians  frequently. 
We  know  that  Pisidian  Antioch  was  colonised  by  settlers 
from  Magnesia,  and  many  other  examples  might  be  quoted. 
How  and   in  what  circumstances  it  was  that  the  settlers 


XII.    The  Greeks  in  Tarsus — Antiocheia     167 

were  selected  in  each  case,  no  record  exists.  We  can  only 
conjecture  in  what  manner  the  superabundant  population 
of  Greece,  finding  their  own  narrow,  barren  country  unfit 
to  offer  a  career  for  their  energies,  poured  forth  now  at  one 
outlet,  now  at  another,  as  the  opportunity  was  offered 
in  the  new  foundations  established  by  the  Greek  kings  in 
western  Asia.  Such  had  been  the  history  of  Greece  in 
earlier  centuries,  when  Greek  cities  founded  their  own 
colonies.  Such  is  now  the  case  in  modern  times,  when 
new  Greek  cit  es  on  the  Mediterranean  coasts  can  no  longer 
be  founded,  and  still  Greek  emigrants  go  forth  in  numbers 
to  push  their  fortunes  as  the  trade  of  the  neighbouring 
countries  open  up. 

The  Greek  settlers  in  Tarsus  and  in  Cilicia  generally  at 
this  period  seem  to  have  been  Argives.  Dion  Chrysostom 
addresses  the  Tarsians  as  "colonists  of  the  Argives". 
Strabo,  who  had  visited  the  city,  and  Stephanus  give  the 
same  account.  The  chief  magistrates  in  Tarsus  and  in 
several  other  Cilician  cities  bore  the  Dorian  title  Demiourgo.s, 
which  may  be  taken  as  a  defini'e  proof  that  the  Greek 
element  in  the  population  was  mainly  Dorian.  It  is  there- 
fore certain  that  the  Tarsians  prided  themselves  on  being 
Dorians  of  Argos,  and  that  their  municipal  institutions  had 
something  of  a  Dorian  character.  It  seems  also  not  im- 
possible that  some  Doric  tinge  may  have  marked  the  Greek 
that  they  spoke ;  and,  though  the  few  late  inscriptions  show 
no  trace  of  this,  such  evidence  could  hardly  be  expected. 
The  Koine,  the  common  Hellenistic  dialect,  would  naturally 
establish  itself  quickly  in  a  city  like  Tarsus  ;  and  only  a 
few  traces  of  the  Doric  dialect  may  perhaps  have  lingered. 
Elsewhere  I  have  used  this  Doric  character  in  Tarsus  as 
foundation  for  a  suggestion  that  the  origin  of  the  Western 


1 68  II.    Tarsus 

text  of  Acts  should  perhaps  be  sought  there :  "^  the  word 
vaoK6po<;  used  for  veQ)K6po<;  in  Acts  xix.  35  in  the  Bezan 
Greek  is  just  such  a  trace  as  might  have  survived  in  Tarsus. 

An  Argive  connection  dating  only  from  171  B.C.  did  not 
satisfy  the  Tarsian  pride  of  antiquity.  The  Hellenistic 
cities  of  that  time  loved  to  invent  an  origin  for  themselves 
in  remote  Greek  mythology.  The  Tarsians  claimed  to  be 
descended  from  the  Argives  who  had  gone  forth  along  with 
Triptolemus  in  search  of  the  lost  lo,  the  beloved  of  the  god, 
transformed  into  a  cow  by  the  anger  of  Hera.  It  belonged 
to  the  ancient  Greek  mind  to  seek  a  mythological  proto- 
type and  Divine  guarantee  for  historical  facts ;  the  first 
Tarsian  Greeks  from  the  Argive  land  readily  believed  that 
they  were  doing  what  their  ancestors  in  the  heroic  age  had 
done  ;  and  this  mythological  fable  soon  established  itself 
as  the  faith  of  the  city.  But  the  same  people,  who  spoke 
of  themselves  as  descendants  of  those  ancient  Argive 
wanderers,  felt  no  inconsistency  in  declaring  that  Tarsus 
was  the  foundation  of  Sardanapalos  and  an  old  Oriental 
city.  Both  Strabo  and  Stephanus  of  Byzantium  repeat  these 
diverse  legends,  as  if  they  were  quite  harmonious;  and, 
when  the  Assyrian  foundation  is  understood  in  the  sense 
described  in  §  VHI.,  there  is  no  contradiction  between  a 
Greek  and  an  Assyrian  foundation. 

Modern  writers  about  Tarsus  have  usually  interpreted 
the  mythological  tale  as  furnishing  evidence  that  Tarsus 
was  really  colonised  from  Argos  in  the  remote  beginnings 
of  Greek  settlement  on  the  Cilician  coast  This  is  a  false 
view  of  the  nature  of  Greek  myth,  and  inconsistent  with 
known  facts  (§  VI.).  The  primitive  Greek  settlers  on  this 
coast  were  "  Sons  of  the  Ionian,"  and  came  to  Cilicia  under 
the  direction  of  the  Clarian  Apollo,  a  god  of  the  Ionian 


XIII,    The  Jews  in   Tarsus  169 

coast.  They  had  necessarily  and  inevitably  melted  into  the 
Cilician  ground-stock,  and  Tarsus  had  long  become  an 
almost  purely  Oriental  town,  in  which  there  is  no  reason 
to  think  that  Demiourgoi  or  any  other  Greek  magistrates 
were  elected.  When  the  new  Hellenic  city  of  Tarsus  was 
founded  in  171  B.C.,  the  titles  and  character  of  the  magis- 
trates were  determined  by  the  facts  of  the  situation  and  the 
origin  of  the  only  Greek  population  in  the  city,  viz.,  the 
newly  enrolled  Greek  citizens — not  by  mythological  inven- 
tions, which  grew  more  slowly  and  took  their  tone  from  the 
established  institutions  of  the  city. 

The  use  of  the  term  Demiourgos  in  other  cities  of  Cilicia 
suggests  that  Antiochus  established  some  connection  about 
this  time  with  the  land  of  Argos,  and  settled  bodies  of 
Argives  in  other  Cilician  cities  whose  constitution  he  re- 
modelled, though  in  smaller  numbers  tlian  at  Tarsus.^** 
Only  in  Tarsus  were  the  numbers  and  influence  of  the 
Greeks  sufficient  to  constitute  at  this  time  a  really  sovereign 
Greek  City-State,  so  far  as  imperial  control  permitted 
sovereignty  in  such  a  city.  The  inscriptions  of  Soloi- 
Pompeiopolis,  near  Tarsus,  contain  considerable  traces  of 
Doric  dialect. 

§  XIII.    The  Jews  in  Tarsus. 

This  section  is  the  most  important  and  fundamental,  so 
far  as  St.  Paul  is  concerned,  in  the  study  of  Tarsian  history. 
On  the  results  of  this  section  must  depend  all  our  ideas 
as  to  the  position  which  the  Apostle's  family  occupied  in 
Tarsus,  as  to  his  own  origin  and  birthright,  and  as  to  many 
allied  questions. 

It  is  clearly  the  presumption  in  the  book  of  Acts  that 
there  was  a  considerable  body  of  Jews  in  Tarsus.     Paul 


1 70  II.    Tarsus 

was  at  home  there  among  friends  of  his  own  race.  That 
this  is  true  to  fact  hardly  any  one  is  likely  to  dispute ; 
and  it  may  seem  not  worth  while  to  prove  it  by  formal 
evidence.  Yet  so  jealous  and  sometimes  so  arbitrary  is  the 
fashion  in  which  the  book  of  Acts  is  usually  treated  by 
scholars  that  a  passage  of  Epiphanius  may  be  quoted  about 
the  Jews  of  Tarsus.  In  the  first  book  of  this  treatise  against 
Heresies,  No.  xxx.  (Migne,  vol.  41,  Epiphanius,  i.,  pp.  411- 
427),  he  gives  an  extremely  interesting  account  of  a  Jew 
named  Joseph,  born  at  Tiberias  about  A.D.  286,^^  whom 
Epiphanius  had  himself  known,  and  from  whose  lips  he 
had  heard  the  whole  story  of  his  life.  Joseph,  who  be- 
longed to  a  family  of  high  standing  and  influence  in  Tiberias, 
became  interested  in  the  Christian  teaching,  but  his  thoughts 
were  for  a  long  time  carefully  hidden  from  his  co-religionists  ; 
he  was  entrusted  with  the  honourable  dignity  and  duties 
of  an  Apostle  among  thein,  and  finally  despatched  on  a 
mission  with  lef^ers  to  the  Jews  of  Cilicia.  He  collected 
from  every  city  of  Cilicia  the  tithes  and  the  first-fruits 
paid  by  the  Jews  in  that  Province.  In  a  certain  city  he 
chanced  to  be  lodged  in  a  house  beside  the  church,  and  he 
thus  became  acquainted  and  even  intimate  with  the  bishop. 
From  the  bishop  he  borrowed  a  copy  of  the  Gospels,  and 
read  the  book. 

Now  Joseph  had  exercised  the  powers  of  the  Apostolate 
with  such  strictness  that  he  became  extremely  unpopular 
with  many  of  the  Jews,  who  began  to  scrutinise  his  conduct 
carefully  in  the  hope  of  finding  some  charge  to  bring  against 
him.  Seeking  their  opportunity,  they  rushed  suddenly  into 
his  abode,  and  caught  him  in  the  act  of  reading  the  Gospels. 
They  snatched  the  book  out  of  his  hands,  seized  him  and 
dragged  him  with  blows  and  curses  and  other  ill-treatment 


XIII.    The  Jews  in   Tarsus  171 

to  the  synagogue,  and  there  flogged  him.  The  bishop, 
hearing  of  this,  hurried  to  the  scene  and  rescued  him  from 
the  hands  of  the  Jews. 

On  another  occasion  the  Jews  caught  Joseph  while 
travelling,  and  threw  him  into  the  Cydnus.  He  was  carried 
away  by  the  current,  and  they  thought  with  delight  that 
he  was  drowned  ,  but  he  escaped.  Shortly  afterwards  he 
joined  the  Christians,  was  baptized,  and  afterwards  pro- 
moted to  the  dignity  of  a  count  {comes)  and  member  of  the 
Privy  Council  {amicus)  of  the  Emperor  Constantine. 

In  this  account  Tarsus  is  not  named,  but  it  is  mentioned 
that  there  were  Jews  in  every  city  of  Cilicia.  It  is  clearly 
implied,  too,  that  the  Cilician  Jews  were  numerous  and 
powerful,  otherwise  they  could  not  under  Christian  rule 
have  ventured  on  such  vigorous  action  against  one  who  was 
suspected  of  a  leaning  towards  Christianity.  The  story 
plainly  shows  that  no  punishment  or  prosecution  took  place 
on  account  of  their  assault,  though  its  illegal  character  is 
evident  (even  allowing  that  considerable  freedom  was  per- 
mitted by  law  to  Jews  in  dealing  with  a  ]&'^).  The  fact 
that  the  bishop  was  able  to  rescue  Joseph  as  soon  as  he 
heard  of  the  first  assault  proves  that  even  in  flogging  a 
presumed  Christian  convert,  the  Jews  were  overstepping 
the  authority  of  the  synagogue :  while  the  second  and 
murderous  assault  was  in  any  circumstances  and  with  any 
provocation  a  serious  breach  of  Imperial  law.  These  facts 
are  inexplicable,  unless  the  Cilician  Jews  had  been  a  power- 
ful body. 

Tarsus  would  certainly  be  their  chief  seat  in  the  Pro- 
vince, because  it  was  the  centre  of  trade  and  finance,  and 
offered  the  best  opportunities  for  money-making.  It  would 
also,  naturally,  be  the  place  where  Joseph  took  up  his  abode, 


172  IL    Tarsus 

when  he  went  to  Cilicia  on  pubh'c  duty,  for  it  was  the  one 
city  from  which  all  the  rest  could  be  best  affected  and 
where  there  was  most  frequent  opportunity  of  coming  into 
contact  with  the  whole  of  the  Cilician  Jews.  Finally,  the 
Jews  of  the  town  where  he  lived  threw  him  into  the  Cydnus, 
therefore  they  were  the  Tarsian  Jews.  They  watched  their 
opportunity  when  Joseph  started  on  a  journey  towards 
Mallos  or  some  place  on  that  side,  and  threw  him  into  the 
river.32  j^g  ^^^^  j^^^^  i^^^^^  travelling  in  that  direction, 
because  the  river  is  not  deep  enough  to  carry  away  a  man 
in  its  current,  except  in  the  lower  part  of  its  course,  and 
Joseph  would  not  have  touched  the  lower  course  of  the 
river,  unless  he  had  been  going  towards  Mallos.  Why 
Epiphanius  avoids  mentioning  the  name  of  Tarsus,  and 
merely  speaks  of  "  a  certain  city,"  I  cannot  explain.  Per- 
haps he  wished  to  avoid  bringing  such  a  charge  against  the 
city  by  name.  Perhaps  it  is  due  simply  to  his  idea  o 
what  was  good  literary  style :  so  Basil  of  Seleuceia  in  his 
history  of  St.  Thekla  mentions  Tarsus  in  circumlocutory 
fashion  as  the  city  of  Damalis  and  Sandes.^^* 

In  passing  we  observe  several  interesting  points  in  the 
story  as  told  by  Epiphanius.  In  the  first  place  the  feeling 
was  very  bitter  between  Jews  and  Christians,  but  it  was 
almost  as  strong  between  Jews  and  pagans  or  Samaritans. 
The  Jews  would  not  permit  any  Greek  (z>.,  pagan),  or 
Samaritan,  or  Christian  to  live  in  the  district  of  Galilee 
where  they  were  strongest ;  it  had  been  impossible  to  build 
a  church  in  any  of  the  towns  or  villages  there,  and  especially 
in  Tiberias,  Sepphoris,  Nazareth,  and  Capernaum.  Such  a 
fact  is  not  favourable  to  the  existence  of  an  unbroken 
Christian  tradition  in  those  towns. 

On  the  other  hand  there  was  some  intercourse  privately 


XIII.    The  Jews  in   Tarsus  173 

between  individual  Jews  and  Christians.  Joseph  was  on 
friendly  terms  with  the  bishop  of  Tarsus,  while  he  was  still 
a  Jewish  Apostle.  Hillel,  the  Patriarch  of  Tiberias,  when 
near  death,  summoned  the  bishop  who  was  nearest  that  city 
to  visit  him.^^  The  pretext  was  that  the  bishop's  services 
as  a  physician  were  required ;  but  every  Jew  in  Tiberias 
must  soon  have  been  aware  that  a  Christian  bishop  was 
attending  their  Patriarch,  even  though  they  did  not  know 
that  he  was  secretly  administering  the  sacrament.  In  later 
times  such  a  visit  could  hardly  have  occurred.  We  observe, 
also,  that  it  is  assumed  by  all  that  the  bishop  was  qualified 
to  act  as  a  physician.  The  importance  of  the  medical  pro- 
fession in  the  Lycaonian  and  Cappadocian  Church  during 
the  fourth  century  has  been  described  elsewhere. 2*  It  would 
almost  appear  that  the  bishop  was  expected  to  possess  some 
medical  skill,  which  should  be  at  the  service  of  his  congrega- 
tion and  of  strangers. 

There  is,  accordingly,  no  doubt  that  a  strong  body  of 
Jews  inhabited  Tarsus.  The  only  question  is  as  to  their 
status  in  the  city  :  were  they  merely  resident  strangers,  or 
had  they  the  full  rights  of  citizens,  i.e.,  of  burgesses  ?  The 
difference  in  a  Hellenic  city  was  profound.  There  were  in 
the  chief  commercial  cities  of  the  Mediterranean  coasts 
large  bodies  of  such  resident  strangers.  Many  of  these 
became  permanent  inhabitants  of  the  city,  and  their  families 
lived  there  generation  after  generation.  But  the  descendants 
of  such  persons  did  not  become  citizens  merely  by  right 
of  their  old  hereditary  connection :  they  all  remained 
outside  of  the  city  (in  the  Hellenic  sense).  They  had  no 
share  in  its  patriotism  and  its  religion.  They  could  freely 
retain  and  practise  their  own  religious  rites,  however  alien 
these  were  to  the  religion  of  the  city  where  they  lived.     It 


1 74  II*    Tarsus 

was  usual  for  a  group  of  such  resident  strangers  to  form 
themselves  into  a  religious  association  for  the  proper  celebra- 
tion of  their  own  ritual.  Thus  they  earned  their  own  re- 
ligion with  them  into  the  heart  of  Greece,  and  were  protected 
by  Greek  law  in  the  performance  of  ritual  which  was  for- 
bidden to  true  citizens — though  that  prohibition  was  rarely 
enforced  and  practically  almost  inoper  itive.  It  was  in  this 
way  that  foreign  and  Oriental  religions  spread  in  the  Greek 
cities,  though  nominally  forbidde  i  on  pain  of  death  and 
stigmatised  as  unworthy,  superstitious  and  un- Hellenic  by 
the  more  educated  among  the  Hellenes. 

Jews  especially  dwelt  in  considerable  bodies  in  various 
Hellenic  cities,  where  they  did  not  possess  any  rights  as 
burgess-citizens,  but  formed  a  simple  association  with  syna- 
gogue or  place  of  prayer  by  the  seashore  or  on  the  bank  of  a 
stream  (as  at  Philippi),  which  aroused  attention  and  attracted 
proselytes,  though  it  repelled  and  was  hated  by  the  majority 
of  the  pagan  populace. 

The  question  arises  whether  the  Jews  at  Tarsus  were 
mere  resident  strang-rs  of  this  kind.  This  seems  disproved 
by  all  that  can  be  gathered  about  that  city. 

The  view  which  we  take  is  that  the  Jews  of  Tarsus  were, 
as  a  body,  citizens  with  full  burgess  rights.  That  does 
not,  of  course,  exclude  the  possibility  that  there  were  some 
or  even  many  resident  stranger  Jews  in  the  city.  The 
right  of  citizenship  could  only  be  got  by  inheritance  from  a 
citizen  father,  apart  from  exceptional  cases  in  which  it  was 
bestowed  by  a  formal  law  on  an  individual  as  a  reward  for 
services  rendered  to  the  city;  but  such  cases  were  compara- 
tively few  in  any  one  city,  for  the  right  was  jealously 
guarded.  There  was  no  desire  to  increase  the  number  of 
citizens,   but   rather   the   general    wish  was    to    keep    the 


XIII.    The  Jews  in  Tarsus  175 

number  small :  philosophers  and  social  theorists  taught 
that  the  ideal  of  a  city  could  be  attained  only  in  a  compara- 
tively limited  size,  while  the  ordinary  selfish  individual 
thought  that  the  advantages  of  citizenship  would  be  dimin- 
ished if  they  were  shared  with  new  citizens. 

There  were  occasional  crises  in  the  history  of  a  Greek 
City-State,  when  the  number  of  citizens  was  enlarged  by 
the  incorporation  ci  considerable  groups  of  new  members. 
Such  crises  were,  naturally,  exceptional  and  rare:  they 
occurred  from  various  causes — sometimes  on  account  of  a 
great  disaster,  which  had  seriously  weakened  the  State  and 
diminished  the  body  of  citizens  to  a  dangerous  extent, 
sometimes  through  external  causes  and  the  interference  of 
a  power  outside  the  State.  In  such  cases  the  body  of  new 
citizens  was  not,  as  a  rule,  incorporated  in  any  of  the  older 
Tribes  of  the  city,  but  in  a  new  Tribe  or  Tribes  instituted 
for  the  purpose. ^^ 

Now  there  is  no  evidence,  and  no  probability,  that  the 
body  of  the  citizens  of  Tarsus  was  ever  enlarged  in  this 
way,  after  it  had  been  founded  as  a  Greek  City-State  by 
Antiochus  Epiphanes  in  171.  While  we  are  only  imper- 
fectly acquainted  with  the  history  of  Tarsus,  there  is  no 
sign  that  any  such  crisis  ever  occurred.  The  reasonable 
probability  is  that  the  foundation  of  171  was  permanent, 
and  determined  the  constitution  of  the  city  until  the  time 
of  Augustus,  when  there  was  an  oligarchic  and  timocratic 
movement,  limiting  the  number  of  burgesses  instead  of  in- 
creasing them,  and  introducing  a  money  qualification. 

The  reasons  for  the  view  that  there  was  a  body  of  Jewish 
citizens  in  Tarsus  are  as  follows. 

In  the  first  place,  Paul  was  a  citizen,  as  he  himself  asserted 
most  emphatically  in  very  dramatic  circumstances  at  Jem- 


176  II.    Tarsus 

salem  (Acts  xxi.  39).  This  implies  that  he  was  a  member 
of  one  of  the  Tribes  into  which  those  Hellenic  Colonies 
were  always  divided.  Now  the  members  of  a  Tribe  were 
closely  bound  to  one  another  by  common  religious  rites, 
which  were  performed  at  every  meeting  of  the  Tribe.  In 
every  Hellenic  city  the  common  religion  of  the  Tribe  was 
an  extremely  important  element  in  the  life  and  the  thought 
and  the  patriotism  of  all  citizens.  No  man  could  be  a 
citizen  except  as  a  member  of  a  Tribe ;  and  the  tribal 
bond  was  intimate  and  sacred.  Now  no  Jew  could  possibly 
become  a  member  of  an  ordinary  Tribe  in  a  Greek  city, 
because  he  would  have  been  obliged  to  participate  frequently 
in  a  pagan  ritual,  which  even  the  most  degraded  of  Jews 
would  hardly  have  faced.  There  was  no  possible  way  by 
which  Jews  who  retained  any  religious  or  patriotic  feeling 
or  national  pride — and  what  Jew  does  not  ? — could  become 
citizens  of  a  Greek  city,  except  by  having  a  Tribe  set  apart 
for  them,  in  which  they  could  control  the  religious  rites  and 
identify  them  with  the  service  of  the  synagogue.  This 
method  was  adopted  in  Alexandria,  where  the  Jews  were  all 
enrolled  in  the  Tribe  called  "  the  Macedonians  "  ;  and  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  the  same  method  was  followed  in  all 
the  Seleucid  foundations,  where  a  Jewish  body  of  colonists 
was  settled.     (See  p.  257  f.) 

Accordingly,  inasmuch  as  Paul  was  a  Tarsian  citizen 
and  his  father  before  him  was  a  citizen,  there  must  have 
been  a  body  of  Jewish  citizens  constituting  the  Tribe  in 
which  they  were  enrolled.  There  can  never  have  been  a 
single  and  solitary  Jewish  citizen  of  a  Greek  city:  if  there 
was  one  Jewish  citizen,  there  must  have  been  a  group  of  Jews 
forming  a  Tribe,  holding  together  in  virtue  of  their  common 
Jewish  religion;    and  it  may   be   regarded   as   practically 


XIII.    The  Jews  in  Tarsus  177 

certain  that  the  synagogue  was  their  Tribal  centre,  where 
they  met  not  only  for  religious  purposes,  but  also  for  judging 
all  cases  affecting  their  tribal  union  and  rights.  In  this  way 
Joseph  of  Tiberias  was  dragged  to  the  synagogue  and  there 
flogged,  as  has  just  been  described. 

This  train  of  reasoning  seems  indisputable ;  and  it  has 
been  fully  accepted  by  Professor  E.  Schiirer.^^  Yet  such 
indirect  arguments,  however  unanswerable  they  be,  never 
can  carry  the  same  complete  conviction  to  the  reader  as  a 
definite  and  direct  proof  that  there  was  in  Tarsus  a  body  of 
Jewish  citizens  ;  and  our  next  argument  is  that  such  a  proof 
is  furnished  by  Romans  xvi.  7-21,  where  six  persons  are 
called  "  kinsmen  "  by  St.  Paul.  The  word  can  hardly  mean 
here  kinsmen  by  right  of  birth  and  blood  in  the  ordinary 
sense  ("  kinsmen  according  to  the  flesh "  in  Romans  ix. 
3);  for  there  is  reason  to  think  that  the  family  to  which 
the  Apostle  belonged  had  not  come  over  to  the  Christian 
Church  in  such  numbers,  but  rather  had  condemned  his 
action  and  rejected  him.^^  Nor  can  it  here  mean  simply 
members  of  the  Jewish  nation,  for  many  of  the  others  who 
are  mentioned  in  this  passage  without  this  epithet  were  un- 
doubtedly Jews.  The  careful  distinction  between  the  various 
epithets  in  the  passage  is  very  instructive.  The  writer  was 
deeply  moved,  and  his  tenderest  feelings  were  roused,  when 
he  was  writing  the  words,  and  each  epithet  is  full  of  emotion, 
a  piece  of  his  heart  and  his  life,  as  it  were.  There  is  in  this 
term  "  kinsmen  "  an  instance  of  the  same  strong  deep  feeling 
for  his  native  city  which  is  found  in  Acts  xxi.  39  (see  §  III.). 
The  word  "  kinsman  "  here  means  fellow-citizen  and  fellow- 
tribesman,  for  all  the  six  were  doubtless  Jews  and  therefore 
members  of  the  same  Tribe  in  Tarsus.    This  use  of  the  word 

"kinsmen"  was  idiomatically  Greek,  and   seems  to  have 

12 


178  II.    Tarsus 

risen  in  other  cases  to  the  mouth  of  the  Greek  when  his 
feelings  of  patriotism  were  moved. ^^  Thus,  for  example, 
when  the  Greeks  of  Ephesus  came  to  Agrippa  to  ask  him 
to  eject  their  Jewish  fellow-citizens  from  participation  in 
the  rights  of  citizenship,"^  they  declared  that  "  if  the  Jews 
are  kinsmen  {i.e.  fellow-citizens)  to  us,  they  ought  to  worship 
our  gods,"  i.e.  to  practise  the  religion  of  the  city,  participa- 
tion in  which  was  the  natural  and  (to  the  Greek  mind)  neces- 
sary expression  of  patriotism  and  kinship.  This  kindred 
and  common  citizenship  was  based  on  religion.  It  was  in 
the  same  sense  that  Paul  calls  those  six  men  his  "  kinsmen  " 
in  Romans  xvi,  7,  11,  21. 

In  the  third  place,  a  proof  of  the  existence  of  a  body  of 
Jewish  citizens  in  Tarsus  can  be  drawn  from  a  passage  in 
Philostratus's  biography  of  Apollonius  of  Tyana,  vi.  34. 
Not  long  after  the  end  of  the  Jewish  insurrection  and  the 
capture  of  Jerusalem,  Titus,  as  co-Emperor  with  his  father, 
chanced  to  be  offering  public  sacrifice  on  behalf  of  the 
State  (probably  in  Rome),  when  delegates  representing  the 
city  of  Tarsus  approached  him  with  a  petition  about  some 
important  interests  of  their  city.  These  ambassadors  must 
have  been,  it  is  needless  to  say,  citizens  of  Tarsus.  Titus 
answered  that  he  would  himself  act  as  their  ambassador  to 
his  father  Vespasian,  and  lay  their  case  before  him.  Here- 
upon Apollonius,  who  was  present  in  the  train  of  his  friend 
Titus,  intervened  and  said  to  him,  "  If  I  prove  to  you  that 
some  of  these  delegates  are  enemies  of  your  father  and  your- 
self, and  went  as  envoys  to  Jerusalem  to  promote  an  insur- 
rection, making  themselves  secret  allies  of  your  most  openly 
declared  enemies,  what  treatment  shall  they  receive  of  you  ?  " 
"What,"  said  Titus,  "but  death?"  "Is  it  not  then  dis- 
graceful,"  replied  Apollonius,  "to  take   vengeance  on  the 


XIII.    The  Jews  in  Tarsus  1 79 


spot,  but  to  postpone  kindnesses  to  a  later  time,  to  inflict 
death  on  your  own  responsibility,  but  to  reserve  favours 
until  you  consult  another  about  them  ?  " 

This  dilemma  which  Apollonius  put  to  Titus  depended 
for  its  effect  on  the  fact  (which  must  have  been  well  known) 
that  many  Jews  were  citizens  of  Tarsus.  Apollonius  was 
on  bad  terms  with  that  city,  as  Philostratus  mentions.  Apol- 
lonius on  his  visit  to  Tarsus  had  sternly  rebuked  the  Tarsians 
for  their  luxury  and  wealth,  and  became  extremely  unpopu- 
lar in  the  city.  Titus  was  therefore  quite  prepared  to  hear 
him  denounce  the  Tarsians.  Further,  as  there  were  many 
Jewish  citizens  in  Tarsus,  he  was  quite  ready  to  believe  that 
some  of  the  envoys  were  Jews,  and  that  the  suggestion  that 
they  had  been  plotting  treason  in  Jerusalem  was  seriously 
intended.  No  person  would  have  suggested,  or  believed, 
that  Greeks  could  have  gone  on  an  embassy  to  Jerusalem  to 
plot  treason  with  Jews:  the  race  hatred  was  notoriously 
too  strong  and  bitter. 

The  seeming  accusation  which  Apollonius  made  with 
such  ready  wit  must  have  been  a  plausible  and  probable 
one  in  itself,  otherwise  Titus  would  not  have  been  taken 
in  by  it.  Its  plausibility  arose  from  the  Jewish  citizen- 
ship in  Tarsus,  and  the  known  fact  that  many  wealthy  and 
prominent  Tarsians  were  Jews.  When  Apollonius  retorted 
with  his  sharp-pointed  dilemma,  Titus  was  charmed. 
Though  he  had  been  caught  in  the  act  of  threatening  death 
as  the  punishment  for  a  superstitious  and  pretended  crime, 
he  extricated  himself  from  the  unpleasant  situation  with 
the  genial  humour  characteristic  of  both  his  father  and  him- 
self, granting  the  Tarsians'  petition,  and  saying  that  his 
father  would  pardon  him  for  yielding  to  truth  and  to  Apol- 
lonius.    After  this  incident,  Tarsian  feeling  towards  Apol- 


i8o  II.    Tarsus 

lonius  changed,  and  he  was  reverenced  as  a  benefactor  and 
"  founder  "  of  the  city.  (On  this  use  of  the  term  "  founder," 
see  p.  132.) 

All  these  three  arguments  unite  in  this,  that  each  shows  us 
a  situation  and  words  which  are  full  of  meaning  and  point, 
if  there  were  Jewish  citizens  in  Tarsus,  but  pointless  and 
insipid  if  there  were  not.  Considering  how  scanty  is  the 
information  that  has  come  down  to  us  about  the  consti- 
tution of  Tarsus  and  the  other  Hellenic  cities  of  Asia  Minor, 
it  is  fortunate  that  on  this  important  matter  so  much 
evidence  has  been  preserved,  proving  that  a  body  of  Jewish 
citizens  formed  an  important  element  in  the  Tarsian  City- 
State. 

§  XIV.    The  Jews  Settled  in  Tarsus  in  171  b.c. 

The  next  question  is  when  this  body  of  Jewish  citizens 
was  settled  in  Tarsus,  We  have  seen  that  they  must  have 
been  settled  there  as  a  body,  and  not  from  time  to  time  as 
individuals ;  that  the  settlement  must  have  formed  part 
of  a  general  reconstruction  of  the  city ;  that  there  was  such 
a  reconstruction  of  Tarsus  in  171  B.C.;  and  that  there  is  no 
sign  or  evidence  of  any  later  reconstruction  having  occurred. 
The  natural  inference  is  that  a  body  of  Jews  was  settled  in 
Tarsus  by  Antiochus  Epiphanes,  as  part  of  the  free  self- 
governing  city  which  he  founded  in  that  year.  I  see  no  way 
in  which  this  inference  can  be  evaded. 

Such  a  settlement  was  in  accordance  with  the  regular 
Seleucid  practice.  Similar  settlements  of  Jews  had  been 
made  in  many  other  cases  by  the  predecessors  of  Antiochus, 
and  on  an  especially  large  scale  by  his  father  in  the  cities 
of  Lydia  and  Phrygia  not  long  before.  Even  if  there  were 
no  record  of  Jewish  citizens  in  Tarsus,  it  would  be  safe  to 


XIV.   The  Jews  Settled  in  Tarsus  in  171  b.c.    18 


speak  of  the  probability  that  he  followed   the  established 
Seleucid  principle,  and  settled  Jews  as  citizens  there. 

Professor  E.  Schurer,  however,  though  he  cannot  suggest 
any  way  of  evading  this  inference,  argues  that  it  "  appears 
very  improbable  in  view  of  the  hostility  of  Antiochus  to  the 
Jews".     Antiochus,   it  is  true,  became  the  enemy  of  the 
rebel  Jews  in  Palestine ;  but  that  was  at  a  later  time.     In 
171  he  considered  himself  as  the  best  friend  of  the  Jewish 
race,  and  was  so  considered  by  many  of  the  most  influential 
Jews  in  Jerusalem.     He  regarded  Jerusalem    with   special 
interest,  and  as  a  token  of  his    favour  bestowed  on  it  his 
own  name.     To  the  Jewish  reactionary   party,  who  raised 
the  successful  revolt,  it  seemed  an  outrage  to  rename  Jeru- 
salem  "Antiocheia";   but  Antiochus  was  innocent  of  any 
intention  to  insult  the  Jews.     The  truth  was  that  the  king 
merely  carried  into  effect  a  great  scheme  of  national  education 
in  Palestine,  the  best  that  the  philosophers  of  the  time  could 
conceive;  and  that   the  scheme   was  highly   popular   with 
the  aristocracy,  but  hated   by  the  common  people  of  the 
country.     This  scheme  of  national  education  was  not  even 
originated  by  Antiochus.     It  had   been  the  settled   policy 
of  the  Seleucid  kings  since  they  became  the  lords  of  Pales- 
tine.    Antiochus  Epiphanes  merely  walked  in   the  beaten 
path,  the  ultimate  aim  of  which  was  to  educate  Palestine 
and  all  the  rest  of  the  Seleucid  dominions  in  Greek  civilisa- 
tion, language  and  manners.     Those   who  still  regard  the 
study  of  Greek  as  so  valuable  that  it  should  be  enforced 
in  every  school  in  our  remote  age  and  land,  ought  not  to 
accuse  Antiochus  of  outrage  and  hostility  because  he  wished 
to  teach  Greek  in  Jerusalem  and  to  bring  the  Jews  up  to 
the  level  of  what  he  and  others  believed  to  be  the  highest 
civilisation  of  the  time. 


1 82  II.    Tarsus 

This  way  of  describing  the  situation  in  Palestine  before 
the  Maccabaean  rising  is  no  frivolous  trifling  with  a  serious 
subject.  It  is  the  literal  truth,  and  it  is  also  the  spiritual 
truth.  The  Seleucid  policy,  which  Antiochus  Epiphanes 
continued,  was  a  noble  and  generous  one,  and  produced 
excellent  results  in  Western  Asia  generally.  It  attempted, 
wisely,  deliberately,  and  with  full  consciousness,  to  produce 
a  conciliation  and  amalgamation  of  Oriental  ideas  and 
Western  education  ;  and  in  many  ways  it  still  offers  a  model 
of  the  best  method  of  essaying  this  most  important  problem 
in  social  development.  But  the  same  policy  which  is  wise 
and  beneficial  in  one  country  may  be  unwise  and  hurtful 
in  another.  It  is  quite  true,  as  Antiochus  and  his  prede- 
cessors saw,  that  the  Jews  had  much  to  learn  from  the 
Greeks ;  but  they  had  more  to  lose  than  to  gain  by  being 
Hellenised,  if  Hellenisation  meant  the  abandoning  of  all 
that  was  distinctive  in  Judaism.  The  Maccabaean  rising 
was  guilty  of  many  faults  and  was  far  from  being  an  unmixed 
good  to  the  world ;  but  it  preserved  the  Jewish  race  from 
being  merged  in  Hellenism  and  kept  it  free  for  its  great 
destiny. 

The  unification  of  the  Empire  was  the  aim  of  Antiochus, 
as  it  had  been  of  his  predecessors,  and  as  it  was  afterwards 
in  the  Roman  Empire.  The  aim  was  a  worthy  and  a  noble 
one.  As  it  is  stated  in  i  Maccabees  i.  41  f,  about  167  B.C. 
"  King  Antiochus  wrote  to  his  whole  kingdom,  that  all 
should  be  one  people,  and  every  one  should  leave  his  laws," 
i.e.,  that  national  differences  and  customs  .should  be  done 
away  with  and  a  uniform  Hellenistic  system  of  civilisation 
and  education  should  be  established. 

So  successful  had  the  Seleucid  policy  already  been  that 
the  "  advanced "  party  among  the  Jews  urged   Antiochus 


XIV.   The  Jews  Settled  in  Tarsus  in  171  b.c.    183 

to  take  more  decided  steps.  He  acted  in  concert  with  the 
Hellenising  Jews,  who  claimed  to  be  the  most  enHghtened 
and  certainly  were  the  wealthy  and  the  powerful  part  of 
the  community. 

The  passage  in  i  Maccabees  proceeds,  "  So  all  the  heathen 
agreed  according  to  the  commandment  of  the  king.  Yea, 
many  also  of  the  Israelites  consented  to  his  religion,  and 
sacrificed  unto  idols,  and  profaned  the  sabbath."  The 
penalty  for  resistance  to  the  policy  which  Antiochus  now 
resolved  to  enforce  was  death.  But  he  had  been  encouraged 
and  prompted  to  this  enforcement  of  the  Hellenising  policy 
by  some  of  the  Jews  themselves.  About  175  Jason,  eager  to 
be  appointed  high  priest,  offered  large  sums  of  money  to  the 
king  (who  was  in  sore  need  of  money  for  his  wars),  "  if  he 
might  have  license  to  set  him  up  a  place  for  exercise 
(Gymnasium)  .  .  .  and  to  write  them  of  Jerusalem  by  the 
name  of  Antiochians "  (2  Mace.  iv.  9).  When  the  king 
granted  permission,  Jason  "  forthwith  brought  his  own  nation 
to  the  Greekish  fashion.  .  .  .  For  he  built  gladly  a  place 
of  exercise  under  the  tower  itself,  and  brought  the  chief 
young  men  under  his  subjection,  and  made  them  wear  a 
hat."  This  process  of  voluntary  Hellenisation  is  described 
as  proceeding  to  great  lengths  for  several  years  in  Jerusalem 
even  among  the  priests. 

The  building  of  a  Grecian  gymnasium,  the  introduction 
of  the  fashion  of  young  men  wearing  hats  and  in  general 
making  themselves  as  Hellenised  as  possible — such  were 
the  outrages  of  which  Antiochus  had  been  guilty  when  the 
rebellion  first  began.  These  cannot  be  condemned  by  us 
as  grave  offences  in  themselves ;  but  they  were  an  attempt 
to  force  Hellenic  customs  on  the  Jews.  The  gymnasium 
implied  the    Greek  fashion  of  practising   athletics  naked ; 


184  II.    Tarsus 

and  this  fashion  was  the  cause  of  real  evils  in  Greece.  The 
hat  has  always  been  and  still  is  an  abomination  to  the  true 
Asiatic ;  it  is  still  the  mark  of  a  European  in  Mohammedan 
lands ;  the  uneducated  Turks  call  a  European  a  Shapkali, 
"  one  with  a  hat ".  For  Jews  to  wear  the  hat  was  to  de- 
nationalise themselves. 

Antiochus,  therefore,  even  after  171,  was  in  no  true  sense 
an  enemy  of  the  Jews.  He  was  only  an  enemy  of  what 
appeared  to  him  to  be  a  violent  and  reactionary  party 
among  the  Jews ;  and  repression  began  about  170  with 
Oriental  severity.  That  party  became  dominant  in  Pales- 
tine, and  hence  arose  war  with  Palestine.  But  none  of 
this  had  taken  place  in  171  ;  and  the  same  policy  which 
made  the  king  eager  to  Hellenise  Palestine  made  him 
introduce  Jewish  colonists  into  Tarsus  and  doubtless  into 
other  Cilician  towns.  It  is,  indeed,  highly  probable  that 
there  were  already  Jews  in  Cilicia,  and  that  Antiochus 
both  bestowed  the  rights  of  citizenship  in  the  remodelled 
cities  on  the  old  resident  Jews,  and  increased  their  numbers 
by  bringing  into  the  country  more  families  of  Jews.  Even 
after  the  Maccabaean  war  began,  it  is  not  probable  that 
Antiochus  ceased  to  trust  or  favour  the  Jews  in  the  north- 
ern part  of  his  realm.  He  would  do  so  only  if  they  joined 
or  sympathised  with  the  rebellion ;  and  at  first  they  were 
not  likely  to  do  so,  for  the  extra-Palestinian  Jews  were 
rather  on  the  Hellenising  side.  They  could  not  live  in  a 
Hellenic  city  without  learning  that  many  Hellenic  customs, 
hated  by  the  zealots,  were  harmless  and  even  good.  They 
did  not  regard  games  and  athletics  with  such  horror  as  the 
zealots  did.  St.  Paul  draws  his  metaphors  and  similes  so 
freely  from  such  Greek  customs  that  it  is  impossible  to 
think  even  he,  strict  Pharisee  as  he  claimed  to  be,  felt  any 


XIV.   The  Jews  Settled  in  Tarsus  in  171  b.c.    185 


detestation  of  Greek  games  and  Greek  ideas  :  had  he  been 
the  narrow  Jew  that  many  scholars  fancy  him  to  have 
been,  he  must  have  regarded  all  those  Greek  things  as  an 
abomination. 

The  conclusion  is  that  Dorian  Greeks  from  Argos  and 
Jews  formed  the  main  body  of  the  new  colonists  settled 
there  by  Antiochus  Epiphanes.  From  171  onwards  there 
was  in  Tarsus  a  body  of  citizens  of  Jewish  blood.  They 
were  a  privileged  class  in  many  ways.  Josephus  points  out 
emphatically  that  the  Seleucid  kings  showed  great  favour 
to  all  the  Jewish  colonists,  conceded  many  things  which 
Jewish  scruples  required,  set  them  free  from  all  obligation 
to  do  an)thing  contrary  to  their  religion  and  their  law. 
We  must  therefore  regard  St.  Paul  as  sprung  from  one 
of  the  families  which  got  the  Tarsian  citizenship  in  171 
B.C.,  and  reject  the  story  (in  itself  an  impossible  one)  re- 
corded by  St.  Jerome,  that  he  or  his  parents  had  emigrated 
from  Gischala  in  Palestine,  when  it  was  captured  by  the 
Romans. 

If  the  Jewish  colonists  had  been  settled  so  long  in  Tarsus, 
and  if  they  were  so  favourable  to  a  Seleucid  king  in  the 
beginning,  how  could  they  be  a  strongly  Hebraistic  and 
national  body,  some  or  many  of  them  strict  Pharisees, 
nearly  two  centuries  later  ?  That  is  only  part  of  the  Jewish 
miracle  over  the  whole  world.  It  was  strange  that  they 
should  have  survived  and  revived  in  Tarsus  ;  but  it  is  equally 
strange  that  they  have  maintained  their  national  feeling  else- 
where for  so  many  centuries.  In  Tarsus  we  observe  that 
they  were  within  easy  reach  of  Jerusalem.  The  restoration 
of  Hebrew  nationalism  by  the  Maccabaean  revolt  must  have 
exercised  a  powerful  influence  on  them.  The  family  gather- 
ing of  the  Passover,  the  household  instruction  about  it  origin, 


1 86  II.    Tarsus 

and  similar  influences,  kept  alive  their  national  feeling,  and 
made  them  revisit  as  often  as  possible  the  national  centre  at 
the  ceremony  in  the  month  Nisan.  Contact  with  a  free 
Hebrew  nation  in  a  Hebrew  capital  city  strengthened  their 
national  pride,  and  fanned  it  into  a  flame. 

§  XV.    Tarsus  the  Hellenistic  City. 

In  the  two  centuries  which  followed  the  foundation  of  the 
new  Hellenised  Tarsus  the  surroundings  and  environment 
amid  which  St.  Paul  was  educated  were  in  process  of  de- 
velopment. But  this  period  of  Tarsian  history  is,  if  possible, 
more  obscure  than  the  earlier  period.  It  was  the  fortunate 
coincidence  of  literary  and  numismatic  evidence  that  illumi- 
nated the  foundation  of  Antiocheia-on-the-Cydnus.  Hardly 
a  ray  of  light  illuminates  any  point  in  the  following  period, 
until  we  come  down  to  the  time  of  the  Emperor  Augustus 
and  the  great  Tarsian  philosopher  and  statesman  Atheno- 
dorus.  A  very  brief  section  will  suffice  for  the  end  of  the 
Greek  period. 

The  oblivion  into  which  the  Greek  name  Antioch  quickly 
fell,  and  the  speedy  restoration  of  the  native  Anatolian 
name  Tarsus,  may  be  taken  as  indicating  that  the  Greek 
element  had  not  attained  a  marked  predominance  in  the 
newly  founded  city.  The  continuity  of  Tarsian  history 
was  not  interrupted  seriously :  the  city  felt  itself  to  be  the 
ancient  Tarsus,  and  not  the  new  Antioch.  Tarsus  could 
never  be  a  thoroughly  Hellenised  city:  Antioch-on-the- 
Cydnus  might  have  been  so. 

Upon  the  coins  we  read  the  same  tale.  The  few  coins 
struck  by  Antioch-on-the-Cydnus  are  thoroughly  Hellenic 
in  character:  the  head  of  the  City  (idealised  as  a  Divine 
figure  wearing  a  crown  of  walls  and  turrets)  and  the  sitting 


XV.    Tarsus  the  Hellenistic  City  187 


figure  of  Zeus  have  on  the  surface  nothing  Oriental  about 
them.  The  sitting  Zeus  had  long  been  a  Tarsian  type ;  but 
formerly,  even  when  no  Aramaic  letters  gave  him  the 
Oriental  name  of  Baal,  there  were  usually  symbols  or 
adjuncts  unsuited  to  the  Greek  Zeus,  which  gave  an  Eastern 
and  non-Hellenic  character  to  the  representation. *«  In  the 
period  171 -164  the  Tarsian  Zeus  appears  almost  purely 
Greek.  The  symbols  of  Anatolian  character,  corn,  grapes, 
and  censer,  have  disappeared.  He  is  Zeus,  and  not  the  Baal 
of  Tarsus.  There  are  no  Aramaic  letters ;  but  the  Greek 
inscription  giving  the  name  of  a  self-governing  people,  "  the 
Antiochians  beside  the  Cydnus".     (See  Fig.  19,  §  XL) 

Even  the  coins  of  the  following  period,  on  which  the  old 
name  Tarsus  reappeared,  were  di^^tinctly  mr  ^  Hellenic  than 
those  of  the  older  time.  On  some  coins  the  Antiochian 
types  remained,  when  the  name  of  Antioch  disappeared. 
Another  common  type  showed  the  Good  Fortune  of  Tarsus 
seated  on  a  chair,  with  the  river-god  Cydnus  at  her  feet : 
it  was  imitated  from  a  famous  statue  by  the  Greek  artist 
Eutychides,  representing  the  Good  Fortune  of  Antioch,  the 
Syrian  capital.  But  the  Tarsian  figure  has  something  about 
it  which  stamps  it  as  the  Oriental  imitation  of  Greek  work. 
The  Greek  sculptor  had  showed  the  Fortune  of  Antioch 
seated  on  the  rocks,  at  whose  feet  was  the  river  Orontes : 
the  Tarsian  imitator  placed  his  goddess  on  a  chair,  with  which 
the  Cydnus  is  out  of  keeping.  The  harmony  of  a  Greek 
ideal  is  wanting  here,  but  the  aim  is  to  show  a  city  seated 
on  the  plain.  The  reverse  shows  the  Hellenic  Zeus,  not  the 
Anatolian  god.  It  is  the  coin  of  a  Hellenic  city,  and  the 
name  of  a  magistrate  is  inscribed  on  it  (Figs.  20,  23). 

Another  type,  which  now  appears  for  the  first  time  on 
Tarsian  coins,  and  which  henceforward  became  very  common. 


i88 


1 1.    Tarsus 


is  strikingly  Oriental  and  Anatolian.  This  is  a  young  male 
god,  who  stands  on  a  winged  and  horned  lion,  wearing  a  tiara 
and  holding  in  his  hands  sometimes  bow-case  and  sword, 
sometimes  flower  and  double-edged  battleaxe  as  described 
above  in  §  IX.,  and  shown  in  Figs,  ii  and  13.  Such  an 
utterly  un-Hellenic  figure  as  this  god  stands  in  marked  con- 
trast with  the  Greek  head  of  the  City  goddess,  which  ap- 
pears on  the  other  side  of  the  same  coins.  It  is  as  if  the 
double  character  and  mixed  population  of  the  city,  Greek  and 
Oriental,  appropriated  each  one  side  of  the  coins. 


Fig.  20. — The  Good  Fortune  of  Tarsus ;  River-god  Cydnus  at  her  feet.  She 
holds  ears  of  corn,  wears  veil  and  crown  of  towers.  Magistrate's 
name,  "  of  Arsaces  ".     Reverse  :  Zeus  sitting. 

In  Fig.  21  an  example  of  this  class  of  coins  is  shown, 
belonging  to  the  period  following  164  B.C.,  but  probably 
later  than  the  one  shown  in  Fig.  11.  The  obverse  shows 
the  head  of  the  City  goddess,  the  Good  Fortune  of  Tarsus, 
whose  full-length  figure  appears  in  Fig.  20.  The  reverse 
shows  the  god  of  Tarsus,  within  a  pyramidal  structure  (des- 
cribed in  §  IX.).  But  the  inscriptions  that  accompany  this 
thoroughly  Anatolian  type  are  purely  Greek,  the  name  of 
the  people  and  the  monogram  of  a  magistrate. 


XV.    Tarsus  the  Hellenistic  City  189 

Tarsus,  with  the  rest  of  Cilicia,  long  remained  a  part  of 
the  decaying  Seleucid  Empire.  The  dynasty  grew  weaker; 
disorder  and  civil  war  tormented  the  State  ;  but  the  arrogant 
ambition  of  princes,  who  could  hardly  maintain  their  position 
at  their  capital  on  the  Orontes,  still  prompted  them  to  seek 
to  enlarge  their  empire  by  adding  foreign  lands  to  their 
inheritance,  as,  for  example,  when  the  Egyptian  throne  was 
vacant  in  123  B.C.  The  Hellenic  grasp  on  Asia  was  relax- 
ing.    There  was  little  enough  of  Hellenism  at  a  court  like 


Fig.  21. — Obverse :  head  of  the  City  goddess.  Reverse :  the  Tarsian  god 
standing  on  horned  lion  between  two  small  altars  within  a  pyramidal 
structure,  on  which  perches  an  eagle.  Name  of  the  city  and  monogram 
of  a  magistrate's  name, 

that  of  the  last  Seleucid  kings  ;  yet  it  was  all  that  remained 
of  the  Greek  sovereignty  in  the  East. 

During  this  period  we  hear  practically  nothing  about 
Tarsus ;  but  it  continued  to  coin  its  own  money  as  a  free 
city.  Between  150  and  100  B.C.  silver  coins  of  the  Seleucid 
kings  bearing  Tarsian  types,  but  not  the  name  of  Tarsus, 
were  sometimes  stmck.  In  the  growing  weakness  of  the 
sovereignty  this  can  hardly  imply  that  the  Seleucid  kings 
were  tightening  their  grasp  upon  Tarsus :    more  probably 


190  II.    Tarsus 

the  choice  of  Tarsian  types  was  meant  by  way  of  comph'- 
ment  to  the  city  as  a  main  support  of  the  dying  Seleucid 
State. 

About  104  B.C.  the  Roman  influence,  which  had  been 
gradually  increasing  in  Asia  Minor,  laid  its  grasp  definitely 
on  Cilicia,  and  made  part  of  it  a  Province.  But  the  history 
of  this  Province  was  for  a  time  complicated  by  a  new 
factor,  the  revival  of  the  Oriental  spirit  under  the  leadership 
of  Mithridates,  king  of  Pontus.  As  the  Greek  element  in 
Asia  grew  weaker,  the  Asiatic  spirit  revived  and  attempted 
to  throw  off  the  bonds  that  European  domination  had  placed 
upon  it.  About  83  this  Asiatic  reaction  overwhelmed  Tar- 
sus. No  authority  records  whether  the  city  was  affected  in- 
ternally by  the  revival ;  but  it  seems  natural  and  probable 
that  at  least  the  original  native  element  would  be  stirred 
to  sympathy  with  the  Mithridatic  movement.  The  Jews, 
however,  were  not  likely  to  be  deceived  by  the  specious  ap- 
pearance of  Orientalism,  which  this  purely  barbarous  and 
destructive  invasion  wore.  All  is,  however,  mere  conjec- 
ture, except  the  fact  that  during  the  following  years  the 
armies  of  Tigranes,  king  of  Armenia,  swf  pt  over  Cilicia  and 
Northern  Syria.  Tarsus,  though  not  named  in  the  brief 
record,  must  have  fallen  under  his  power,  as  did  Soloi  which 
lay  farther  away  to  the  west. 

Nothing  could  have  happened  which  was  more  calculated 
to  strengthen  the  Western  spirit  in  Tarsus  than  the  conquest 
by  a  barbarian  like  Tigranes.  There  was  inevitably  a  re- 
vulsion in  the  city  towards  Hellenism.  Now  Roman  policy 
always  was  directed  to  encourage  and  strengthen  the  hold 
of  Hellenism  on  the  Eastern  Provinces.  The  trained  and 
practical  instinct  of  the  Empire  did  not  seek  to  destroy 
Greek  civilisation  in  Asia  in  order  to  put  Roman  civilisation 


XVI.    Tarsus  as  Capital  of  Cilicia  191 


in  its  place,  but  treated  the  two  as  allied  and  united  in  the 
task  of  training  the  Oriental.  Hence  the  reaction  from  the 
barbarism  of  Armenian  rule  was  in  favour  of  Rome  as  well 
as  of  Hellenism.  When  the  European  hold  on  Cilicia  was 
renewed  by  the  issue  of  the  Mithridatic  wars,  and  the  East 
was  reorganised  in  the  Roman  interest  by  Pompey  the  Great 
in  65-4  B.C.,  the  restoration  of  the  Province  was  probably 
welcomed  in  Tarsus.  The  Province  of  Cilicia  now  became 
much  larger  and  distinctly  more  important  than  before.*^ 

§  XVI.   Tarsus  as  Capital  of  the  Roman  Province 

Cilicia. 

When  the  Roman  province  of  Cilicia  was  first  instituted 
about  104  B.C.,  neither  Tarsus  nor  the  Cilician  plain  was 
made  part  of  Roman  territory.  They  continued,  appar- 
ently, to  belong  to  the  Seleucid  kingdom,  though  the 
hold  of  the  effete  monarchy  on  this  now  outlying  part  of 
its  shrunken  territories  can  have  been  only  nominal.  This 
situation  of  affairs  tended  to  strengthen  the  municipal  govern- 
ment in  Tarsus,  which  would  probably  deal  directly  with 
the  overshadowing  power  of  Rome. 

The  Province  was  instituted  chiefly  in  order  to  control 
the  pirates  of  Cilicia  Tracheia  (the  mountainous  region  west 
of  the  level  Cilician  plain),  and  to  maintain  peace  on  the 
coasts  and  the  waters  of  the  Levant.  Harbours  and  stations 
on  the  land  of  Tracheia  were  necessary  for  this  purpose,  but 
the  plain  and  the  cities  of  Cilicia  proper  were  not  occupied.*^ 
The  Cilician  Province  was  not  as  yet  a  strictly  territorial 
district:  the  term  was  used  rather  in  the  older  sense  of 
"  a  sphere  of  duty  ".  The  Roman  governor  of  Cilicia  was 
charged  with  the  care  of  Roman  interests  generally  in  the 
south  and  east  of  Asia  Minor  and  on  the  Levant  coasts  and 


192  II.    Tarsus 

waters.  He  went  wherever  the  pressing  needs  of  the  occa- 
sion called  him.  He  seems,  when  it  was  necessary,  to  have 
been  in  the  habit  of  marching  through  lands  which  were  not 
as  yet  in  any  real  sense  Roman  ;  and  this  implies  that  some 
vague  right  to  free  movement  across  those  regions  had  been 
conceded  to,  or  assumed  by,  the  Romans.  The  two  Pro- 
vinces of  Asia  and  Cilicia  divided  between  them  the  execu- 
tion of  Roman  policy  in  Asia  Minor ;  and  apparently  the 
only  principle  of  division  was  that  what  did  not  clearly 
belong  to  the  Province  of  Asia  fell  within  the  Cilician  sphere 
of  duty. 

The  limits  of  the  Cilician  Province  under  the  Republican 
administration  were  vague  and  undefined  :  they  varied  widely 
at  different  times.  The  governor  of  Cilicia  was  sometimes 
active  on  the  Pamphylian  and  Lycian  coast  and  in  Lycaonia. 
At  one  time  even  great  part  of  Phrygia  was  detached  from 
Asia  and  placed  in  the  Cilician  Province  :  such  was  the 
case,  for  example,  when  Cicero  governed  Cilicia  in  5 1  B.C. 
This  extension,  evidently,  originated  during  the  time  when 
the  pirates  constituted  a  danger  so  great  that  Roman  ships 
were  afraid  to  sail  along  the  Levant  coasts.  The  gover- 
nor of  Cilicia  was  then  obliged  to  land  at  Ephesus  and  go  by 
road  into  Cilicia.  As  he  passed  across  Phrygia  it  was  con- 
venient for  him  to  hold  the  assizes  in  the  great  cities.  After 
Pompey  put  down  the  pirates  in  ty  and  opened  the  sea 
once  more,  the  connection  of  Phrygia  with  Cilicia  was  main- 
tained for  a  considerable  time,  and  Cilicia  was  then  the 
most  important  of  the  Eastern  Provinces  in  a  political  view 
as  well  as  the  largest,  for  its  governor  directed  the  whole 
foreign  policy  of  Rome  on  the  north-east  frontier. 

The  varying  character  of  the  Province  Cilicia  reflected  the 
confused  condition  of  Roman  politics  and  government.     Be- 


XVI.    Tarsus  as  Capital  of  Cilicia  193 


tween  104  and  49  B.C.,  Roman  policy  was  uncertain  in  its 
aims  and  generally  ineffective ;  when  the  Civil  War  began 
in  49,  there  was  no  policy  at  all,  until  the  issue  of  the  struggle 
was  determined. 

In  the  decay  of  all  the  Greek  dynasties,  which  marked  the 
later  second  century  and  the  earlier  half  of  the  first  century, 
there  was  in  Asia   Minor   no  possible  rule   except   either 
Roman  or  Asiatic  ;  and,  not  unnaturally,  the  Roman  govern- 
ment shrank  from  the  gigantic  task  of  administering  the 
affairs  of  the  East,  while  it  was  also  reluctant  to  withdraw 
its  hand  and  power  from  the  country  altogether.     The  un- 
certainty  of  Roman   aims  weakened    its   power;   and   the 
necessary  result  of  the  slackening  of  its  grasp  was  that  the 
Asiatic  princes,  like  Mithridates  of  Pontus  and  Tigranes  of 
Armenia,   seized  the  opportunity   to   assert  their   freedom 
against  Roman  dictation  and  to  enlarge  their  kingdoms  by 
western  conquest     At  first  they  even  found  allies  among 
the  Hellenic  states  and  cities.     Dread  and  dislike  of  Rome 
united  Hellene  and  Asiatic.     Mithridates  not  merely  over- 
ran the  whole  of  the  Province  of  Asia,  but  even  sent  his 
armies  into  Greece  and  was  welcomed  for  a  moment  as  a 
deliverer  by   cities  like  Athens.     He  had,    however,   mis- 
calculated his  power,  and  he  only  succeeded  by  over-ambi- 
tion in  compelling  the  Romans  to  exert  their  strength  and 
in  making  it  clear  that  no  compromise,  no  partition  of  Asia 
Minor  between  Rome  and  the  Asiatic  princes,  nothing  but 
war  to  the  knife,  ending  in  either  the  subjection  of  Asia  to 
Europe  or  the  ejection   of  all  Europeans  from  Asia,  was 
possible  at  that  time. 

The  task  imposed  on  the  Roman  government,  however, 
was  too  great.  It  could  conquer,  but  it  could  not  administer. 
Its  general,  Pompey,  destroyed  Mithridates  and  Tigranes, 


i^ 


194  n.    Tarsus 

and  regulated  after  a  fashion  the  East.  He  set  up  kings 
and  dethroned  kings,  founded  cities,  gave  constitutions  and 
laws ;  but  his  work  was  ineffective  when  the  central  govern- 
ment was  paralysed.  Some  fixed  purpose  and  definite 
policy  was  needed,  but  the  Roman  Senatorial  government 
had  no  clear  ideas  in  Eastern  policy,  and  was  powerless  to 
maintain  order. 

To  establish  a  permanent  peace,  it  was  necessary  to  con- 
ciliate in  a  single  State  the  warring  elements,  Oriental  and 
Western.  These  elements  cannot  be  adjusted  and  conciliated 
by  any  government  acting  from  above  and  from  outside  ; 
but  they  will  work  out  their  own  balance  and  equipoise, 
if  a  strong  hand  simply  enforces  order — a  truth  which  modern 
European  governments  in  Asia  and  Egypt  are  slow  to  learn, 
but  which  the  Seleucid  kings  from  300  B.C.  onwards  had 
roughly  understood. 

Augustus  at  last,  with  his  clear  practical  sense,  seems  to 
have  divined  the  nature  of  the  situation.  Like  the  Senate, 
he  shrank  from  undertaking  the  task  of  administering  the 
East.  He  did  not  at  first  greatly  enlarge  the  Roman  terri- 
tory. He  continued  the  traditional  Roman  policy  of  en- 
trusting frontier  lands  to  dependent  kings.  But  he  insisted 
that  these  kings  must  maintain  order  and  peace,  and  that 
they  must  administer  their  charge  to  Roman  satisfaction. 
He  regarded  them  as  agents,  entrusted  with  the  duty  of 
civilising  and  training  their  subjects  up  to  the  level  of  order- 
liness suitable  for  incorporation  in  the  Roman  Empire  as 
Provinces. 

So  he  allowed  a  large  kingdom  in  central  Asia  Minor  to 
remain  under  charge  of  Amyntas,  king  of  Galatia,  until 
25  B.C.  Then,  on  the  sudden  and  unexpected  death  of 
Amyntas  in  battle,  he  took  the  inheritance  of  this  kingdom, 


XVI.    Tarsus  as  Capital  of  Cilicia  195 


and  formed  it  into  the  province  Galatia,  while  the  private 
property  of  the  king,  including  the  vast  estates  of  the  god 
round  Pisidian  AnJoch,  were  added  to  his  own  private 
fortune.  With  the  formation  of  this  new  Province  of  Galatia 
the  importance  of  the  older  Province  Cilicia  disappeared. 
For  about  a  century  Galatia  included  the  charge  of  Roman 
interests  and  policy  in  central  and  eastern  Asia  Minor,  while 
Cilicia  was  now  made  by  Augustus  a  mere  adjunct  to  the 
great  Province  of  Syria. 

In  the  Cilician  Province,  Tarsus  necessarily  played  its 
part  as  the  capital;  but  its  name  is  rarely  mentioned  in 
the  Republican  time.  It  exercised  little  influence  on  a 
policy  which  was  frankly  Roman  and  almost  regardless  of 
the  rights  or  interests  of  the  subject  people.  Tarsus  is 
practically  unknown  to  us  during  the  republican  period, 
except  as  a  point  on  Cicero's  journeys  through  his  Province, 
and  a  place  where  he  occasionally  resided.^^ 

In  strong  contrast  to  the  policy  of  the  Republican  govern- 
ment, the  Imperial  policy  was  from  the  beginning  keenly 
alive  to  the  duty  that  Rome  owed  to  the  subject  races. 
These  non-Roman  races  were  to  be  treated  fairl)^,  governed 
honestly  and  for  their  own  benefit,  educated  up  to  the  level 
of  Roman  citizenship,  and  gradually  admitted  to  the  citizen- 
ship year  by  year,  now  one  person,  now  another,  as  each 
individual  earned  in  one  way  or  other  this  honour  and 
privilege.  Such  was  the  ideal  which  the  Empire  set  before 
itself,  and  which  the  great  Emperors,  like  Trajan,  tried  to 
realise.  In  the  Imperial  period,  accordingly,  there  was  far 
greater  opportunity  than  before  for  the  prosperity  and 
development  in  its  own  line  of  a  provincial  city.  Both  the 
individual  subjects  and  the  cities  of  the  Provinces  had  a 
career  opened  to  them  in  aiding  the  well-being  of  the  whole 


196  II.    Tarsus 

Empire.     A  provincial  city  henceforth  could  have  a  history 
of  action,  and  not  merely  a  history  of  suffering. 

It  would  be  too  little  to  say  that  there  was  general  con- 
tentment with  the  new  order.  The  older  Provinces  in 
general,  and  Tarsus  in  particular,  were  filled  with  enthusi- 
astic loyalty  to  the  Empire,  which  had  brought  with  it  peace, 
order,  justice,  fair  collection  of  a  not  too  burdensome  taxa- 
tion, and  good  government  generally,  in  spite  of  isolated 
exceptions  and  failures. 

It  accords  with  the  new  spirit  of  government  that  with 
the  Empire  Tarsus  emerges  once  more  into  the  light  of 
history.  We  hear  of  it  frequently  from  the  moment  that 
Julius  Cassar,  the  true  founder  of  the  Empire,  entered  its 
gate  for  a  brief  visit  in  47  B.C.,  during  his  march  from  Egypt 
northwards  against  the  Pontic  king.  Then  the  feelings  and 
desires  of  the  Tarsians  began  to  appear,  and  we  find  that 
they  were  frankly  and  enthusiastically  for  the  Empire  and 
against  the  Senate.  They  were  so  devoted  to  Julius  Caesar, 
that  they  called  their  city  JuHopolis,  and  afterwards  they 
were  well  disposed  to  his  nephew,  the  future  Emperor 
Augustus,  on  his  uncle's  account.  Cassius,  acting  on  behalf 
of  the  Senatorial  party,  compelled  the  Tarsians  and  Tarkon- 
dimotos,  the  client-king  of  the  eastern  parts  of  Cilicia,  to 
come  over  to  his  side  in  43  B.C.,  when  he  was  preparing  for 
the  campaign  which  ended  in  the  battle  of  Philippi  during 
the  following  year.  But  when  Cassius  marched  on  into 
Syria,  and  Dolabella  approached  Cilicia  in  the  interests  of 
the  Caesarian  party,  Tarsus  gladly  joined  him  and  took  an 
active  part  in  the  war  against  Cassius  and  against  the 
neighbouring  city  of  Adana,  which  they  considered  to  be 
favourable  to  Cassius.  On  the  approach  of  troops  sent  by 
Cassius,   however,   Tarsus   yielded  without   fighting.      The 


XVI.    Tarsus  as  Capital  of  Cilicia  197 

Tarsians  could  make  war  on  a  rival  town,  but  they  dared 
not  resist  the  Roman  soldiers. 

Municipal  jealousies  and  the  old  rivalry  between  Tarsus 
and  Adana  (§  III.)  were  thus  mixed  with  the  wider  politics 
of  the  time,  and  were  with  many  people  more  powerful, 
because  nearer  at  hand,  than  the  larger  interests  of  the 
great  world-struggle.  Dion  Chrysostom,  a  century  and 
a  half  later,  speaks  of  the  old  feud  between  Tarsus  and 
Adana. 

Cassius  soon  afterwards  entered  Tarsus,  and  requisi- 
tioned all  the  money  he  could  from  the  State  and  from 
private  individuals,  but  did  not  make  any  massacre. 

When  Antonius  came  to  the  East  in  42  B.C.  to  represent 
the  power  of  the  victorious  Triumvirs,  in  accordance  with 
the  arrangement  which  assigned  to  him  the  command  of 
the  Eastern  Provinces,  and  to  Augustus  the  command  of  Italy 
and  the  West,  Tarsus  reaped  some  reward  of  its  suffer- 
ings. It  was  complimented  for  its  loyalty;  it  was  granted 
the  status  of  a  "  free  city,"  libera  civitas — which  implied  that 
while  continuing  to  be  part  of  the  Empire,  i.e.  of  the  Pro- 
vince, it  was  governed  according  to  its  own  laws  and  not  by 
Roman  law — along  with  the  right  to  duty-free  export  and 
import  trade.  Antony  resided  for  some  time  at  Tarsus, 
and  here  occurred  his  famous  meeting  with  Cleopatra,  when 
the  Egyptian  queen  sailed  in  her  splendid  galley  up  the  river 
Cydnus  and  entered  Tarsus  in  all  the  pomp  of  Oriental 
luxury. 

The  privileges  which  Antony  had  bestowed  on  Tarsus 
were  renewed  or  confirmed  by  Augustus,  when  he  became 
master  of  the  whole  Roman  world  after  the  battle  of  Actium 
in  31  B.C.  Hence  it  was  open  to  Dion  Chrysostom,  who 
naturally  ignored  Antony   and  took   account  only  of  the 


198  II.    Tarsus 

recognised  line  of  transmission  of  the  Imperial  authority,  to 
speak  to  the  Tarsians  about  Augustus  as  the  author  of  all 
their  privileges.  Augustus  recognised  the  importance  of 
Tarsus  and  treated  it  with  great  favour. 

It  is  clear  from  the  preceding  account  that  Pompey, 
Julius  Caesar,  Antony,  and  Augustus  are  all  likely  to  have 
given  the  Roman  citizenship  to  a  certain  number  of  im- 
portant Tarsians.  Those  who  received  this  honour  from 
Antony  would  doubtless  have  to  pay  for  it.  Any  Roman 
Tarsian  born  about  the  time  of  Christ  would  probably  have 
as  his  Roman  names  either  Gnaeus  Pompeius,  or  Gaius 
Julius,^  or  Marcus  Antonius,  for  he  would  bear  the  praeno- 
men  and  nomen  of  the  official  to  whom  he  owed  the  citizen- 
ship (see  §  XVIII.). 

§  XVII.  The  Oriental  Spirit  in  Tarsus. 
It  has  been  pointed  out  that  the  balance  in  the  constitu- 
tion of  Tarsus  depended  on  the  presence  of  both  Greeks 
and  Jews  in  the  State.  The  older  native  element  (into 
which  the  original  Ionian  Greek  stock  had  melted  and  been 
lost)  was  doubtless  the  larger  numerically,  but  was  prob- 
ably more  inert  and  passive,  not  guiding  but  following. 
The  control  and  guidance  lay  in  the  hands  of  the  two  enter- 
prising and  vigorous  races.  This  view  implies  that  the 
Greeks  and  the  Jews  tended  to  opposite  sides  in  municipal 
politics.  In  the  Seleucid  time  it  may  be  regarded  as  prac- 
tically certain  that  the  Greeks  insisted  on  autonomy  and 
laid  more  stress  on  the  liberty  and  right  of  self-government 
in  the  city,  while  the  Jews  clung  to  and  championed  the 
Seleucid  connection.  The  Greeks  always  and  everywhere 
in  the  world  tended  to  exaggerate  the  rights  of  the  indivi- 
dual.    The  Jews  were  more  likely  to  remember  that  they 


XVII.    The  Oriental  Spirit  in   Tarsus        199 

had  been  placed  in  the  city  by  the  kings,  and  depended 
on  the  kings  for  protection  against  Greek  dislike  and 
enmity.  The  sense  of  common  interest  made  the  Jews 
trusted  and  trustworthy  colonists  in  the  Seleucid  founda- 
tions. 

Now  comes  the  question  that  is  of  the  most  vital  im- 
portance for  Tarsian  municipal  history.  What  form  did 
this  balance  and  opposition  between  Greek  and  Jew  take  in 
the  Roman  Tarsus  ?  As  always,  the  Greeks  must  have 
insisted  on  the  r  ghts  of  the  individual,  and  on  the  freedom 
of  the  citizen  from  external  control ;  wherever  the  Greek 
element  is  strong  the  law  is  weak,  and  the  government  is 
guided  rather  by  caprice  than  by  principles.  That  has  been 
the  fact  throughout  all  history  ;  the  Greeks  are  more  pros- 
perous under  almost  any  other  government  than  they  are 
under  their  own. 

This  Greek  spirit  was  diametrically  opposed  to  the  Roman 
law-making  and  law-abiding  spirit.  We  should  expect  to 
find  that  the  Re  man  administration  in  Tarsus  trusted  most 
to  the  Jewish  element  as  more  conservative  and  more 
serious,  more  consistent  and  less  capricious,  than  the  Greek. 
As  regards  the  Republican  period  there  is  no  evidence.  In 
the  beginning  of  the  Imperial  time  the  city  as  a  whole  was 
agreed  in  support  of  Julius  Caesar,  and  afterwards  of  the 
Triumvirs,  against  the  Senate.  Partly  the  rivalry  with 
Adana,  still  more  the  hatred  against  the  tyranny  of  the 
Senatorial  government,  made  the  general  body  of  the  citi- 
zens unite.  The  Jews  throughout  the  Roman  world  seem 
to  have  been  enthusiastic  supporters  of  Julius  Caesar  ;  Sue- 
tonius*^ mentions  that  in  Rome  the  Jews  mourned  vehe- 
mently throughout  successive  nights  at  his  tomb;  and 
naturally  they  took  an  active  part  in  the  popular  move- 


200  1 1.    Tarsus 

ment  on  his  side.  Naturally,  also,  the  Jews  of  Palestine 
remembered  that  Pompey  had  profaned  the  Holy  of  Holies, 
and  that  Julius  Caesar  had  avenged  them  of  their  enemy. 
There  is  no  reason  to  think  that  the  Tarsian  Jews  differed 
from  the  rest  of  their  race. 

The  later  history  of  Tarsus,  however,  as  will  be  recounted 
in  a  following  section,  shows  the  Greek  element  about 
the  time  of  Christ  in  strong  opposition  to  the  policy  of 
Augustus ;  and  a  suppression  of  popular  liberty  was  carried 
through  by  Athenodorus,  the  friend  of  Augustus,  armed 
with  authority  from  the  Emperor  him^^^elf  The  change  in 
the  constitution  was  emphatically  anti-Hellenic  in  character, 
and  could  not  but  strengthen  the  Oriental  element  in  the 
city. 

That  brings  up  another  question  :  what  was  the  attitude 
of  the  large  native  population,  the  old  Tarsian  stock,  in  the 
Roman  time  ?  We  may  take  Athenodorus  as  a  specimen. 
He  was  born  in  a  country  village  near  Tarsus,  from  which 
he  took  his  surname  Kananites.  He  was  trained  in  the 
Greek  philosophy,  but  his  school  was  the  Stoic,  which  had 
a  marked  Oriental  complexion  and  numbered  among  its 
leaders  many  men  of  Oriental  birth.  He  was  in  strenuous 
opposition  to  the  democratic  principles  of  the  Greeks,  who, 
from  eagerness  to  secure  the  freedom  of  the  individual,  were 
too  apt  to  sacrifice  order,  law,  and  the  true  liberty  of  the  com- 
munity as  a  whole.  In  his  struggle  against  the  violence  of 
faction,  and  his  final  suppression  of  popular  licence  and 
liberty,  he  would  probably  and  naturally  carry  with  him  the 
native  population,  which  was  strongly  Oriental  in  character, 
and  therefore  had  little  eagerness  for  that  freedom  of  the 
individual,  which  was  so  dear  to  the  Greeks.  The  opposi- 
tion which,  during  the  second  century  B.C.,  naturally  existed 


XVII.    The  Oriental  Spirit  in  Tarsus       201 

between  the  old  native  population  and  the  new  colonists 
both  Hebrews  and  Greeks,  must  have  gradually  disappeared 
as  the  generations  passed  ;  and  new  grouping  of  the  Tarsian 
parties  came  into  being  to  suit  new  conditions.  The 
Oriental  element,  including  both  Jews  and  the  old  Cilician 
people,  stood  over  against  the  Greek  element.  The  latter 
was  distinctly  weaker,  and  the  Oriental  character  in  Tarsus 
must  therefore  have  been  strongly  accentuated. 

That  this  was  so  is  proved  by  the  evidence  of  Dion 
Chrysostom  in  the  two  orations  which  he  delivered  to  the 
Tarsians  about  A.D.  no.  He  had  come  with  the  approval 
of  the  Emperor  Trajan  on  an  informal  mission  to  several 
of  the  great  cities  of  the  East ;  thus  his  position  was 
not  unlike  that  of  Athenodorus  in  the  time  of  Augustus. 
Neither  held  any  regular  office  or  was  armed  with  formal 
authority,  but  both  carried  with  them  the  immense  informal 
influence  that  the  personal  friendship  and  support  of  the 
Emperor  conferred  in  the  eyes  alike  of  Roman  officials  and 
of  the  provincial  population.  Dion  Chrysostom  was  a  Greek 
of  Bithynia,  Greek  not  by  race,  but  by  temperament,  by 
education,  and  by  a  really  deep  and  genuine  admiration  for 
the  ancient  Hellenic  literature  and  achievements  in  all  de- 
partments of  life.  His  evidence  about  Tarsus,  therefore,  is 
peculiarly  valuable.*^ 

Dion  was  struck  with  the  non-Hellenic  character  of 
Tarsus  and  of  Cilicia  in  general.  He  acknowledges  that 
Tarsus  was  a  colony  of  the  Argives  ;  but  its  spirit  was  not 
Greek ;  one  asked,  as  one  surveyed  the  Tarsian  populace, 
whether  these  people  were  Greeks  or  the  worst  of  the 
Phoenicians.  In  speaking  to  the  Rhodians  Dion  praised 
their  Hellenism ;  even  a  barbarian  who  visited  Rhodes 
would  be  impressed  by  the  old  Hellenic  spirit,  and  would 


202 


1 1.    Tarsus 


recognise  at  once  that  he  had  entered  no  Syrian  or  Cilician 
city,  but  one  that  w  s  truly  Greek.  In  speaking  to  the 
Tarsians,  on  the  contrary,  he  recogni--ed  nothing  that  was 
Hellenic  among  them,  and  little  that  was  good  in  their 
manners.  Only  one  Tarsian  characteristic  does  he  praise 
unreservedly,  and  that  he  praises,  though  it  was,  as  he  says, 
utterly  different  from  the  Hellenic  custom.  He  was  much 
pleased  with  the  extremely  modest  dress  of  the  Tarsian 
women,  who  were  always  deeply  veiled  when  they  went 
abroad.  As  Tarsian  ladies  walked  in  the  street,  you  could 
not  see  any  part  either  of  their  face  or  of  their  whole  person, 
nor  could  they  themselves  see  anything  out  of  their  path. 
They  were  separate  from  the  public  world,  while  they  walked 
in  it. 

Now  the  difference  of  spirit  between  one  race  and  another 
is  nowhere  else  so  strongly  marked  as  in  their  treatment 
of  women  and  their  customs  regarding  the  conduct  and 
dress  of  women.  The  complete  veiling  of  women  in  the 
^  W  Oriental  style  was  practised  in  Tarsus ;  and  thus  even  this 
Graeco-Roman  city  was  marked  as  an  Oriental,  not  a  Greek 
town.  The  Greek  was  swallowed  up  in  the  Oriental.  .That 
seems  to  be  a  law  of  nature :  wherever  the  two  elements 
meet  in  Asia,  either  they  must  hold  apart  or  the  Greek  is 
gradually  merged  in  the  Oriental. 

We  may  notice  in  passing  how  strong  an  effect  was  pro- 
duced on  the  mind  of  St.  Paul  by  his  Tarsian  experience 
in  this  respect.  It  is,  as  a  rule,  the  impressions  of  child- 
hood that  rule  one's  prejudices  in  regard  to  the  conduct  of 
women ;  and  the  Apostle  prescribes  to  the  Corinthians  a 
very  strict  rule  about  the  veiling  of  women  (i  Cor.  xi.  3-16). 
Whereas  men  are  to  have  their  heads  uncovered  in  Church, 
it  is  disgraceful  for  women  to  be  unveiled  there.     Now  it 


XVII.    The  Oriental  Spirit  in  Tarsus       203 

would  be  quite  possible  that  a  Greek  or  a  Roman  should 
reach   this  opinion    about  women's   dress   and   conduct  in 
church.     So  far  as  this  command  goes,  it  was  quite  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  ideas  of  the  most  orderly  and  thoughtful 
among  those  peoples  and  quite  in  keeping  with  the  customs 
of  good  society.     But  there  is  one  little  touch  in  St.  Paul's 
sermon  about  women  that  reveals  the  man  brought  up  amid 
Oriental  custom.     He  says  that  "  the  woman  ought  to  have 
authority  (i^ovaia)  upon  her  head  ".     This  seems  so  strange 
to  the  Western  mind  that  the  words  have  been  generally 
reckoned   among   the   most   obscure   in   the   whole  of  the 
Pauline   writings.     A   vast   amount   has   been    written    by 
commentators  about  them,  almost  entirely  erroneous   and 
misleading,  and  sometimes  false  to  Greek  language  and  its 
possibilities.     Most  of  the  ancient  and  modern  commentators 
say  that  the  "authority"  which  the  woman  wears  on  her 
head  is  the  authority  to  which  she  is  subject — a  preposterous 
idea  which  a  Greek  scholar  would  laugh  at  anywhere  except 
in  the  New  Testament,  where  (as  they  seem  to  think)  Greek 
words    may   mean    anything    that    commentators    choose. 
Authority  or  power  that  belongs  to  the  wearer,  such  power 
as  the  magistrate  possesses  in  virtue  of  his  office,  was  meant 
by  the  Greek  word  i^ouo-ta.    So  Diodorus,  i.  47,  describes  the 
statue  of  the    mother  of  the  Egyptian  king  Osymandyas, 
wearing  three  royalties  upon  her  head,  i.e.  she  possessed  the 
royal  dignity  in  three  different  ways,  as  daughter,  wife  and 
mother  of  a  king.^'^     The  woman  who  has  a  veil  on  her  head 
wears  authority  on  her  head  :  that  is  what  the  Greek  text  says. 
To  the  European  the  words  are  unintelligible  ;  but  that  is  be- 
cause he  is  a  European.     He  must  cease  for  a  moment  to  be 
a  European  and  pass  into  the  realm  of  life  and  thought  in 
which  the  words  apply.     Then  he  will  understand  them. 


204  II.    Tarsus 

To  the  Oriental  the  words  are  simple  and  clear :  they 
describe  the  ordinary  fact  of  life.  Their  meaning  has  been 
well  described  by  Rev.  W.  M.  Thomson,  in  his  work  Th& 
Land  and  the  Book,  p.  31,  in  which  he  has  set  down  the 
ripe  knowledge  acquired  during  thirty  years'  residence  in 
S>ria  and  Palestine.  It  was  my  good  fortune  not  to  read 
this  book  until  I  had  been  visiting  Turkey  for  many  years 
and  had  learned  enough  to  appreciate  the  intimate  know- 
ledge which  guides  the  thought  and  expression  of  the 
author.  The  book  seems  now  to  be  little  read  ;  but  scholars 
would  find  it  far  more  instructive  and  educative  than  many 
of  the  more  learned  and  more  ignorant  works  produced  by 
Palestinian  tourist  savants,  who  see  only  the  surface  of  the 
land  and  people  among  whom  they  make  hasty  excursions, 
and  then  judge  about  custom  and  character.  I  have  no 
prejudice  (as  many  young  travellers  have)  against  the  tourist 
who  dwells  in  the  tents  of  Cook.  On  the  tour  he  learns 
much,  if  he  has  been  previously  studying  the  subject ;  his 
ideas  gain  precision  and  vividness  during  a  few  weeks  or 
months  of  travelling.  But  sometimes,  conscious  how  much 
he  has  learned  in  the  line  of  his  competence  and  how  much 
more  real  the  history  of  Palestine  has  become  to  him,  he 
fails  to  appreciate  the  limits  imposed  by  the  circumstances 
of  his  tour.  Mr.  Thomson  puts  in  his  book  the  intimate 
knowledge  about  details  that  he  had  gathered  in  half  a 
lifetime. 

In  Oriental  lands  the  veil  is  the  power  and  the  honour 
and  dignity  of  the  woman.  With  the  veil  on  her  head,  she 
can  go  anywhere  in  security  and  profound  respect.  She 
is  not  seen ;  it  is  the  mark  of  thoroughly  bad  manners  to 
observe  a  veiled  woman  in  the  street.  She  is  alone.  The 
rest  of  the  people  around  are  non-existent  to  her,  as  she  is 


xviii.   Romans  otherwise  Tarsians  205 


to  them.  She  is  supreme  in  the  crowd.  She  passes  at  her 
own  free  choice,  and  a  space  must  be  left  for  her.  The 
man  who  did  anything  to  annoy  or  molest  her  would  have 
a  bad  time  in  an  Oriental  town,  and  might  easily  lose  his 
life.  A  man's  house  is  his  castle,  in  so  far  as  a  lady  is 
understood  to  be  there ;  without  her  it  is  free  to  any  stranger 
to  enter  as  guest  and  temporary  lord. 

But  without  the  veil  the  woman  is  a  thing  of  nought, 
whom  any  one  may  insult.  The  true  Oriental,  if  unedu- 
cated in  Western  ways,  seems  to  be  inclined  naturally  to 
treat  with  rudeness,  to  push  and  ill-treat,  a  European  lady 
in  the  street.  A  woman's  authority  and  dignity  vanish  along 
with  the  all-covering  veil  that  she  discards.  That  is  the 
Oriental  view,  which  Paul  learned  in  Tarsus. 

§  XVIII.    Romans  otherwise  Tarsians. 

With  Pompey's  settlement  of  the  East  in  64  B.C.  began 
probably  the  long  series  of  Tarsian-Roman  citizens,  one  of 
whom  is  known  to  us  as  "  Saul  otherwise  called  Paul ". 
In  the  Republican  time  Roman  citizenship  was  not  so  fre- 
quently given  as  in  the  Imperial  time  ;  but  it  is  natural 
and  probable  that  Pompey,  when  he  conquered  the  Cilician 
plain  in  66,  may  have  found  some  of  the  leading  Tarsians 
useful  to  him  in  regulating  the  country  for  the  new  system, 
and  rewarded  them  with  the  Roman  citizenship.  It  was  a 
matter  of  pride  and  also  of  real  advantage  in  various  ways 
for  a  Roman  noble  to  have  clients  and  connections  in  the 
great  provincial  cities ;  he  aided  them  and  acted  for  them 
in  Rome,  while  they  added  to  his  dignity  as  a  Roman  and 
furthered  his  interests  in  their  respective  countries. 

Such  new  citizens  would  naturally  take  his  name,  Gnaeus 
Pompeius,  retaining  generally  as  a  cognomen  or  third  name 


2o6  1 1.    Tarsus 

their  original  Hellenic  designation.  The  Roman  name 
Gnaeus  Pompeius  would  thereafter  persist  in  succeeding 
generations  as  a  family  name,  and  ail  male  descendants  of 
the  family  would  bear  it,  being  distinguished  from  one 
another  by  their  various  cognomina  or  additional  names. 
If  we  had  any  lists  of  Tarsian  citizens  during  the  first  two 
centuries  of  the  Empire,  we  should  probably  find  in  them 
more  than  one  family  bearing  the  name  Pompeius. 

Hence  arises  a  difference  between  Roman  names  in  strict 
usage  and  these  Roman  names  in  the  Provinces.  In  proper 
Roman  usage  Gnaeus  was  the  name  of  the  individual,  Cor- 
nelius or  Pompjius  or  so  forth  was  the  name  of  \}ciQ  gens  of 
which  he  was  a  member,  and  the  cognomen  was  often  the 
name  of  his  family  {e.g.,  Scipio),  though  sometimes  a  personal 
epithet  given  to  himself,  as  Magnus  was  to  Pompey.  But 
when  a  large  number  of  families  took  such  names  universally 
as  Gnaeus  Pompeius,  Gains  Julius,  Tiberius  Claudius,  Marcus 
Antonius,  these  wholly  ceased  to  be  distinctive,  and  the  third 
name  or  cognomen  alone  was  individual  and  distinguishing. 
Hence  the  third  name  was  in  this  latter  usage  far  the 
most  important.  A  person  was  generally  designated  by 
his  cognomen  (which  in  a  Hellenic  city  was  usually  a 
Greek  name),  whereas  if  he  were  mentioned  by  the  more 
dignified  appellation  of  Gnaeus  Pompeius,  this  would  leave 
his  personality  uncertain,  for  other  members  of  a  good  many 
families  were  so  designated.  In  some  inscriptions  it  may 
be  noticed  that  the  more  familiar  part  of  the  name,  the 
cognomen  (or  even  in  some  cases  a  fourth  name,  given  as 
a  still  more  familiar  and  distinguishing  name),  is  engraved 
at  the  top  in  a  line  by  itself  in  larger  letters,  while  the  full 
name  is  stated  in  letters  of  ordinary  size  in  the  body  of  the 
inscription.     This,  it  may  be  observed,  is  one  out  of  many 


XVIII.   Romans  otherwise  Tarsians  207 

ancient  usages,  in  which  large  letters  were  employed  to  mark 
superior  importance  or  direct  the  reader's  attention  to  the 
words  so  emphasised  (compare  Gal.  vi.  11).'*^ 

The  result  was  that  in  the  Greek-speaking  Provinces  the 
triple  name  was  used  only  in  more  formal  and  compliment- 
ary designation,  and  especially  was  required  as  a  legal 
designation  ;  but,  in  the  ordinary  life  of  Hellenistic  cities 
like  Tarsus,  the  full  name  sank  almost  out  of  use  and  out 
of  notice.  Hence  no  full  Roman  names  occur  in  the  New 
Testament,  although  it  stands  (according  to  our  view)  in  such 
close  and  intimate,  though  often  hidden,  relation  with  the 
Roman  life  and  policy  in  the  Provinces ;  because  the  New 
Testament  moves  on  the  plane  of  everyday  life,  and  is  ex- 
pressed in  the  common  speech,  sometimes  in  quite  colloquial 
style.  This  is  most  noticeable  in  the  personal  names.  In 
many  cases  the  familiar  abbreviated  or  diminutive  form  of 
a  name  was  used  in  place  of  the  full  and  correct  form,  as 
in  Apollos,  Silas,  Loukas,  Epaphras,  Priscilla :  in  some  of 
these  the  correct  form  of  the  word  never  occurs  in  the  New 
Testament,  in  others  we  find  both,  as  in  Epaphras  and 
Epaphroditus,  Apollos  and  Apollonius,  Priscilla  and  Prisca.^^ 
Where  both  are  attested,  it  will  be  observed  that  either  the 
natural  tendency  to  more  formal  and  elaborate  politeness 
made  some  speakers  use  the  formal  correct  name,  whereas 
other  speakers  tended  to  use  the  more  colloquial  and  familiar 
name,  or  the  occasion  sometimes  demanded  more  formality 
from  a  speaker  who  at  other  times  employed  the  familiar 
name.  Thus,  for  example,  Paul  uses  the  formal  names 
Silvanus  and  Prisca,  but  Luke  always  speaks  of  Silas  and 
Priscilla :  Paul  uses  the  name  Epaphras  in  writing  to  the 
Colossians  and  to  Philemon,  for  they  were  familiar  with  the 
personality  of  their  fellow-townsman,  but  to  the  Philippians, 


2o8  1 1.    Tarsus 

who  were  strangers,  he  speaks  of  Epaphroditus.  In  these 
examples,  which  might  be  multiplied,  we  see  the  variations 
characteristic  of  ordinary  social  usage  ;  some  people  tend  to 
use  diminutives  more  freely  than  others,  and  the  same  person 
will  designate  another  according  to  the  occasion,  now  more 
formally,  now  by  the  diminutive. 

But  the  formal  Roman  triple  name  was  simply  not  em- 
ployed at  all  in  the  ordinary  social  usage  of  Hellenic  cities. 
The  Greeks  never  understood  the  Roman  system  of  names, 
and  when  they  tried  to  write  the  full  triple  Roman  designa- 
tion of  one  of  their  own  fellow-citizens,  who  had  attained  to 
the  coveted  honour  of  Roman  citizenship,  they  frequently 
made  errors  (as  is  shown  in  many  inscriptions).  So  at  the 
present  day  foreigners  frequently  misuse  English  titles,  and 
speak  of  Sir  Peel  or  Lord  Gladstone.  The  reason  why  the 
Greeks  failed  to  understand  the  Roman  system  of  names 
was  because  they  never  followed  the  Roman  fashion  except 
under  compulsion.  Greek  custom  gave  one  name  to  a  man, 
and  knew  nothing  of  a  family  name,  still  less  of  the  Roman 
gentile  name  (such  as  Pompeius) ;  and  so  all  Greeks  spoke 
of  their  fellow-townsmen  who  had  become  Romans  by  their 
Greek  names,  as  if  they  were  still  mere  Hellenes  and  men  of 
one  name. 

Thus  it  comes  about  that,  although  Paul  and  Silas  and 
Theophilus,^  and  probably  various  others  mentioned  in  the 
New  Testament,  were  Romans,  the  full  Roman  name  of  none 
of  them  is  mentioned.  This  silence  about  the  full  legal 
name  is  no  proof  of  ignorance  or  inaccuracy :  it  is  just  one 
of  the  many  little  details  which  show  how  close  and  intimate 
is  the  relation  between  the  New  Testament  and  the  actual 
facts  of  life.  But  just  as  certain  is  it  that  Paul  had  two 
Roman  names,  praenomen  and  nomen,  as  it  is  that  he  was 


XVIII.   Romans  otherwise  Tarsians  209 

a  Roman  citizen.  No  one  could  be  a  Roman  citizen  with- 
out having  a  Roman  name ;  and,  though  he  might  never 
bear  it  in  ordinary  Hellenic  society,  yet  as  soon  as  he  came 
in  contact  with  the  law  and  wished  to  claim  his  legal  rights 
he  must  assume  his  proper  and  full  Roman  designation. 
The  peculiar  character  of  the  double  system  and  civilisation, 
Greek  and  Roman  at  once,  comes  into  play.  In  Greek  sur- 
roundings the  Tarsian  Roman  remains  a  Greek  in  desig- 
nation ;  but  in  Roman  relations  his  Roman  name  would 
necessarily  be  employed. 

If  Luke  had  completed  his  story  and  written  the  narrative 
of  St.  Paul's  trial  in  Rome,  we  may  feel  confident  of  two 
things,  first  he  would  probably  have  mentioned  the  Roman 
name  at  the  opening  of  the  trial ;  and,  secondly,  he  might 
perhaps  have  made  an  error  in  setting  down  the  name  in 
Greek.  The  strict  legal  designation  required  the  father's 
name  and  the  Tribe  to  be  stated,  and  these  had  a  fixed  order : 
the  Greeks  constantly  make  some  error  or  other  in  regard 
to  order,  when  they  try  to  express  in  Greek  the  Roman  full 
designation. 

Not  merely  had  Paul  a  Roman  praenomen  and  nomen, 
but  he  was  also  enrolled  in  one  of  the  Roman  Tribes.  This 
was  a  necessary  part  of  the  citizenship,  just  as  enrolment  in 
one  of  the  city  Tribes  was  a  necessary  part  of  the  citizen- 
ship of  a  Greek  city.  Now  it  may  seem  inconsistent  that, 
after  we  have  in  a  previous  section  proved  so  carefully  that 
it  is  for  religious  and  patriotic  reasons  inconceivable  that  a 
Jew  should  ever  become  a  member  of  an  ordinary  Greek 
city  Tribe,  we  should  now  lay  it  down  as  an  assured  and 
certain  fact  that  Paul  was  an  enrolled  member  of  an  ordinary 
Roman  Tribe.  There  is,  however,  no  inconsistency.  No 
Jew  could  become  a  member  of  a  Hellenic  city  Tribe,  be- 

14 


2IO  II.    Tarsus 

cause  every  such  Tribe  was  a  local  body,  meeting  at  regular 
intervals  and  bound  together  by  common  religious  rites,  in 
which  every  member  must  participate.  But  the  Roman 
Tribes,  though  originally  similar  in  character  to  the  Greek 
Tribes,  had  long  ceased  to  be  anything  more  than  political 
and  legal  fictions :  they  were  mere  names,  from  which  all 
reality  had  long  passed  away ;  their  members  were  scattered 
all  over  the  Roman  world  ;  they  never  met,  and  therefore 
had  no  religious  bond  of  union.  It  is  indeed  the  case  that, 
so  long  as  the  Roman  people  continued  to  vote,  those 
members  of  the  Tribes  who  wished  to  vote  and  lived  near 
enough  to  Rome  must  meet  to  exercise  the  vote,  and  some 
religious  formality  must  have  been  practised  at  this  meeting. 
But  few  of  the  widely  scattered  citizens  could  meet  and  vote. 
The  Roman  citizenship  had  other  value  than  mere  exercise 
of  a  vote,  and  citizens  who  lived  in  the  Provinces  could 
never  make  any  use  of  the  vote.  Moreover,  after  Tiberius 
became  Emperor  in  14  A.D.,  the  Roman  people  ceased  to 
meet  in  comitia,  and  the  popular  vote  had  no  longer  any 
existence.  In  Tribes  like  these  there  was  nothing  to  forbid 
a  Jew  from  having  himself  enrolled;  and  all  Jews  who 
became  Roman  citizens  were  ipso  facto  made  members  of  a 
Tribe,  but  membership  was  a  mere  matter  of  name  and  law, 
free  from  religious  duties. 

Inasmuch  as  the  Tarsian  Jews  were  citizens  of  a  Hellenic 
city,  their  language  was  necessarily  Greek,  and  all  who 
were  citizens  bore  Greek  names  (or  at  least  names  which 
were  outwardly  Greek).  In  some  cases  they  may  have 
taken  names  which  were  Grecized  forms  of  Hebrew  words ; 
but  no  certain  example  of  this  is  known  to  me,  though 
some  may  be  suspected. ^^  Some  Jews  in  Hellenic  cities 
certainly  bore  names  which  were  equivalent  in  meaning  to 


XVIII.   Romans  otherwise  Tarsians  211 

Hebrew  names,  as  Stephanus  to  Atara,  Gelasius  to  Isaac, 
Theophilus  to  Eldad  or  Jedidiah,  among  women  Eirene  to 
Salome:  in  such  cases  probably  the  Hebrew  name  was 
used  in  Jewish  circles  and  the  Greek  translation  in  Hellenic 
society.  But  the  great  majority  took  ordinary  Greek 
names,  and  hence  arises  the  difficulty  of  tracing  the  history 
of  the  many  thousands  of  Jewish  families  who  settled  in 
Lydia,  Phrygia,  and  Cilicia.  Only  in  a  few  cases  can  we 
trace  a  Jewish  family  through  some  accident  betraying 
its  nationality;  for  example  the  curious  name  Tyrronius, 
found  at  Iconium,  Sebaste  and  Akmonia  (in  all  of  which 
Jews  were  numerous),  is  proved  to  be  Jewish,  and  at 
Akmonia  the  wealthy  pair,  Julia  Severa  and  Servenius 
Capito,  who  are  so  often  mentioned  on  coins,  were  almost 
certainly  Jews.^-^  But,  as  a  whole,  the  large  Jewish  popula- 
tion of  those  regions  disappears  from  the  view  of  history 
owing  to  their  disuse  of  Hebrew  names,  at  least  in  public. 

In  Roman  Imperial  times,  when  the  Jews  were  protected 
and  powerful,  there  was  in  some  degree  a  revival  of  purely 
Jewish  names.  The  name  Moses  is  perhaps  found  at  Ter- 
messos  in  a  remarkable  inscription  of  the  third  century : 
•'  I  Aurelius  Mo[s]es,  son  of  Karpus,  having  been  every- 
where often  and  having  often  investigated  the  world,  now 
lie  in  death  no  longer  knowing  anything ;  but  this  only  (I 
say)  '  be  of  good  courage,  no  man  is  immortal '."  ^^  Another 
case  is  Reuben  in  a  long  Eumenian  epitaph,  also  of  the 
third  century.^* 

Even  in  Greek  times,  however,  it  is  probable  that  most  of 
the  Jews  of  Anatolia  had  a  Hebrew  name,  which  they  used 
in  their  private  life  at  home  and  in  the  circle  of  the  syna- 
gogue. The  Hebrew  name  was  an  alternative  name,  not  an 
additional  or  second  name.     The  bearer  was  called  by  one 


212  II.    Tarsus 

or  by  the  other,  according  to  the  occasion,  but  not  by  both : 
to  use  one  of  the  few  certain  examples,  the  Jew  was  "  Paul 
otherwise  Saul,"  "  Paul  alias  Saul".  In  Greek  surroundings 
he  bore  the  one  name,  in  Hebrew  surroundings  the  other. 

Whether  there  was  any  principle  guiding  the  selection  of 
the  two  names  is  uncertain.  Sometimes  (see  above,  p.  211) 
the  Greek  translated  the  Hebrew.  The  topic  is  part  of  a  wider 
question,  the  evidence  on  which  has  never  been  collected 
and  estimated.  In  the  Greek  cities  and  colonies  in  alien 
lands,  Thrace,  Russia,  the  Crimea,  and  Asia  generally,  numer- 
ous examples  occur  of  the  alternative  name.  In  many  cases 
these  belong  evidently  to  the  two  languages  of  a  bilingual 
city,  one  is  Greek,  one  of  the  native  tongue ;  but  that  is  not 
a  universal  rule ;  there  are  plenty  of  cases,  especially  of  a 
later  time,  in  which  both  are  Greek.  The  fact  seems  to  be 
that,  as  time  passed  and  one  language  established  itself  as 
predominant  in  the  city,  the  alternative  names  still  persisted 
in  popular  custom,  but  were  no  longer  taken  from  two 
different  languages.  The  original  rule,  hovt^ver,  is  the  im- 
portant one  for  our  purpose  :  viz.,  that  in  a  bilingual  society 
the  two  names  belong  to  the  two  languages. 

It  was  natural  that  the  Jews  should  often  take  the 
names  of  those  kings  who  had  favoured  them  so  much 
and  opened  to  them  the  citizenship  of  many  great  cities. 
Alexander  was  certainly  a  common  name  among  them,  and 
perhaps  also  Seleucus,  for  both  Alexander  and  Seleucus 
favoured  and  protected  the  Jews  ;^^  but  we  can  well  imagine 
that,  after  the  restoration  of  Jewish  power  by  the  Maccabees, 
the  name  of  Antiochus  may  have  become  unpopular  among 
the  Jews  (though  it  does  not  seem  to  have  been  entirely 
avoided).  But,  allowing  that  Alexander  and  Seleucus  were 
popular  names  among  them,  it  would  be  absurd  to  conjecture 


XVIII.   Rofnans  otherwise  Tarsians  213 

that  every  Alexander  in  Central  Anatolia  was  a  Jew.  Even 
negative  inferences  are  impossible.  There  is  no  reason  to 
think  that  the  Jews  objected  to  names  connected  with  idola- 
try, such  as  Apollonius,  Artemas  (or  Artemidorus),  Asklepi- 
ades,  etc.  Examples  can  be  quoted  of  Jews  bearing  names 
of  that  kind,  such  as  Apollonius  or  Apollos.^'" 

Epigraphy,  generally  speaking,  was  public,  not  private ; 
and  in  a  Hellenic  city  public  matters  were  expressed  in 
Greek.  Hence,  as  it  is  almost  solely  the  public  epigraphic 
memorials  that  have  been  preserved,  we  rarely  know  more 
than  the  Greek  names  of  the  Anatolian  Jews,  only  occasion- 
ally the  alternative  name  is  stated.  In  the  later  Roman 
period,  when  a  purely  Jewish  name  was  sometimes  used  in 
a  public  memorial,  this  may  imply  either  that  the  alterna- 
tive Greek  (or  Roman)  name  was  disused  by  the  individual, 
or  that  he  had  throughout  life  borne  the  Jewish  name  alone 
without  a  Greek  name.  The  examples  of  Moses  and 
Reuben  have  been  quoted  above. 

When  a  Jew  who  was  citizen  of  a  Hellenic  city  was 
honoured  with  the  Roman  citizenship,  the  matter  of  nomen- 
clature was  complicated  by  the  Roman  triple  name.  As  a 
Greek  and  as  a  Jew,  such  a  citizen  had  a  single  name  in 
each  case ;  as  a  Roman  he  had  three  names ;  but  the  third 
of  these  names  was,  as  a  rule,  identical  with  the  Greek  name. 
Thus  we  find  a  Jewish  Christian  at  Ilierapolis  named  "  M. 
Aurelius  Diodorus  Koriaskos,^^  otherwise  called  Asbolos". 
We  may  conjecture  that  Asbolos  was  the  Christian  baptismal 
name,  "  he  whose  sins  had  been  black  like  soot ".  Diodorus 
was  the  Greek  name,  M.  Aurelius  Diodorus  the  Roman,  and 
the  second  cognomen  is  of  uncertain  character,  perhaps  a 
familiar  name  in  private  life. 

The  Jews  who  became  Roman  citizens  might  naturally 


214  II-    Tarsus 

be  expected  to  have  Greek  names  as  their  cognomina  in  ordi- 
nary familiar  use ;  and  especially  the  earliest  of  them  must 
assuredly  have  had  such  Greek  names.  Latin  cognomina, 
however,  came  into  use  occasionally ;  and  are  more  likely 
to  have  been  employed  in  families  where  the  Roman  citi- 
zenship had  been  an  inheritance  for  some  generations.  The 
one  early  instance  which  is  known  with  certainty  is  Paul, 
whose  Roman  first  and  second  names  are  unknown  ;  his 
cognomen  was  Latin,  not  Greek ;  and  he  had  an  alternative 
Hebrew  name  Saul.  Yet  he  was  a  citizen  of  a  Hellenic 
city,  and  therefore  legally  a  Hellene  (except  in  so  far  as 
Hellenic  citizenship  gave  way  to  Roman  citizenship),  but  in 
Greek  society  he  passed  under  his  Latin  cognomen.  As  his 
father,  and  possibly  also  his  grandfather,  had  possessed  the 
Roman  citizenship,  the  use  of  Latin  speech  and  names  was 
an  inheritance  in  the  family. 

§  XIX.    The  Tarsian  Democracy. 

The  importance  attached  to  Tarsian  citizenship  and  ex- 
pressed in  the  hasty  words  of  St.  Paul,  Acts  xxi.  39, 
quoted  in  §  V.,  was  greatly  increased  by  the  changes 
introduced  during  the  reign  of  Augustus  into  the  consti- 
tution of  Tarsus.  The  changes  were  introduced  through 
the  instrumentality  of  Athenodorus,  the  only  Tarsian 
besides  Paul  himself  who  stands  out  before  us  as  a  real 
person ;  and  an  account  of  them  will  make  the  munici- 
pality of  Tarsus  more  intelligible,  and  will  at  the  same  time 
illustrate  to  the  reader  the  personality  of  a  noteworthy 
Tarsian  and  the  surroundings  amid  which  Paul  was  born 
and  brought  up. 

Under  the  careless  and  corrupt  rule  of  Antony  in  the 
East,  Tarsus  was  exposed  to  suffer  from  the  caprices  and 


XIX.    The  Tarsian  Democracy  215 

the  favourites  of  an  idle  despot.  A  certain  Boethos,  "bad 
poet  and  bad  citizen,"  as  Strabo  calls  him,  a  native  of  Tarsus, 
was  patronised  by  Antony,  whose  favour  he  had  gained  by 
a  poem  celebrating  the  battle  of  Philippi.  The  vice  of 
Greek  democratic  government  was  the  careless  readiness 
to  embark  in  any  new  scheme  that  caught  the  popular  taste 
and  to  employ  any  leader  who  suggested  himself  as  likely 
to  further  the  enterprise  of  the  moment.^*  Boethos  knew 
well  how  to  make  use  of  the  Tarsian  democracy  for  his  own 
benefit,  and  he  allied  himself  with  a  gang  of  corrupt  associ- 
ates to  plunder  the  municipality.  After  the  fall  of  Antony 
in  the  end  of  31  B.C.,  the  personal  influence  of  Boethos  in 
Tarsus  was  weakened ;  but  the  gang  evidently  had  got 
possession  of  the  machinery  of  government,  and  there  was 
no  great  improvement  in  the  administration.  Then  Atheno- 
dorus  came  back  to  Tarsus,  invested  with  the  influence 
that  belonged  to  a  personal  friend  of  the  Emperor  Augustus, 
and  apparently  holding  also  in  reserve  a  commission  from 
the  supreme  ruler  empowering  him  to  reform  the  constitu- 
tion of  Tarsus  as  he  might  find  expedient.  The  way  in 
which  Athenodorus  had  risen  to  this  high  position  in  the 
Imperial  administration  is  interesting  in  itself,  and  gives 
a  remarkable  view  of  the  character  of  that  period  and  of 
the  importance  which  then  belonged  to  education.  (See 
§  XX.) 

As  to  P'^ethos,  nothing  is  known  except  what  we  can 
gather  from  the  brief  account  in  Strabo.  He  stands  before 
us  a  type  of  the  worst  product  of  Greek  democracy,  the 
skilful  manipulator  of  popular  government  for  the  benefit 
of  a  clique  of  corrupt  and  unscrupulous  partisans.  It  is 
true  that  we  know  about  him  only  from  a  friend  and  admirer 
of  his  opponent,  Athenodorus ;  but  the  facts  stand  out  so 


2i6  II.    Tarsus 

natural  and  so  life-like  in  Strabo's  pages  that  they  are 
convincing.  Tarsus  fell  under  the  control  of  a  ring  similar 
to  that  Tammany  ring  which  long  controlled  New  York 
in  our  own  time ;  and  the  situation  was  the  same  in  both 
cities.  The  influence  of  the  more  educated  body  of  the 
citizens  was  weakened,  in  the  one  case  through  the  disorders 
of  the  Civil  War,  followed  by  the  capricious  and  corrupt 
rule  of  Antony,  in  the  other  case  by  the  absorption  of  the 
educated  citizens  in  other  pursuits  and  their  withdrawal 
from  the  work  of  municipal  government. 

The  name  Boethos  might  suggest  the  suspicion  that  he 
was  a  Jew.  It  is  known  to  have  been^borne  by  Jews,  and 
it  was  undoubtedly  favoured  by  them  as  a  Greek  translation 
of  the  Hebrew  name  Ozer  or  Ezra.^^  But  there  is  no  reason 
to  think  that  the  name  was  confined  to  Jews  ;  and  the  skill 
which  Boethos  showed  in  manipulating  the  machinery  of 
municipal  administration,  though  characteristic  of  the  worst 
class  of  Jews,  was  not,  and  never  has  been,  confined  to  that 
race.  This  bad  poet  is  perhaps  more  likely  to  have  been  a 
Greek.  It  was  at  any  rate  through  clever  handling  of  the 
most  worthless  elements  of  Greek  city  life  that  he  obtained 
his  position  in  history. 

§  XX.    Athenodorus  of  Tarsus. 

Athenodorus  was  a  citizen  of  Tarsus  born  not  in  the  city 
itself,  but  in  "a  certain  village"  of  its  territory,  as  Strabo 
says.  The  village  origin  and  the  name  of  his  father,  Sandon 
— a  thoroughly  Cilician  name — mark  Athenodorus  as  be- 
longing to  the  native  element  in  the  Tarsian  state  (see  § 
XVIII.).  The  name  of  the  village  must  have  been  Kanana; 
and  therefrom  was  formed  the  epithet  Kananites,  by  which 
this  Athenodorus  was  distinguished  from  another  Tarsian 


XX.   Athenodorus  of  Tarsus  217 

philosopher,  of  slightly  earlier  date,  who  bore  the  same 
name.  Both  lived  long  in  Rome  ;  each  was  the  confidential 
friend  of  a  noble  Roman,  one  of  Cato,  the  other  of  Augustus ; 
both  were  Stoics :  and  confusion  between  them  was  easy.^ 

The  life  of  Athenodorus  extended  from  about  74  B.C.  to 
7  A.D,  He  died  in  his  eighty-second  year,^^  and  he  was  the 
teacher  of  the  youthful  Augustus  at  Apollonia  in  Epirus. 
Now  the  residence  of  Augustus  at  Apollonia  ended  in  the 
spring  of  44  B.C.,  and  it  is  hardly  possible  that  Athenodorus 
was  less  than  thirty  years  of  age  at  that  time.  Eusebius, 
in  his  chronicle,  says  that  he  was  famous  in  7  A.D. ;  this 
statement  must  be  understood  of  the  culmination  of  his 
career  in  Tarsus  (to  which  he  returned  in  old  age),  and  his 
death  may  be  placed  in  the  same  or  an  immediately  follow- 
ing year,  7-9  A.D.  He  was  born,  therefore,  between  74  and 
72  B.C. ;  and  the  earlier  dates  74  B.C.  and  7  A.D.  are  prob- 
ably preferable  for  the  limits  of  his  life  (as  will  appear  in 
the  sequel),  and  as  such  will  be  here  adopted. 

Athenodorus  is  mentioned  in  such  close  relation  with 
Posidonius,^^  the  leader  of  the  Stoic  school  of  philosophy 
at  Rhodes,  that  he  may  be  confidently  called  his  pupil. 
He  studied,  therefore,  at  Rhodes  under  that  teacher  before 
A.D.  51,  when  Posidonius  migrated,  near  the  end  of  his  long 
life  of  eighty-four  years,  to  Rome.  After  concluding  his 
studies  Athenodorus  may  be  presumed,  according  to  the 
usual  custom,  to  have  travelled,  completing  his  education  by 
acquiring  experience  of  the  world  and  life.  His  writings 
(as  we  shall  see)  prove  that  his  travels  extended  beyond 
the   Greek  world  into  the  Eastern  desert. 

We  may  also  confidently  assume  that  he  must  have  given 
lectures  in  some  of  the  great  cities  of  the  Mediterranean 
lands.     It  was  in  this  way  that  young  aspirants  to  philo- 


2 1 8  II.    Tarsus 

sophic  distinction  made  themselves  known  in  educated  cir- 
cles, and  in  time  found  a  home  and  a  career  in  some  part  of 
the  Greek  world ;  and  it  was  as  one  of  those  travelling 
philosophers  that  Paul  afterwards  found  a  hearing  in  those 
GiCek  cities.  After  some  years  spent  in  this  kind  of  proba- 
tion as  a  lecturer,  Athenodorus  settled  at  Apollonia  on  the 
coast  of  Epirus.  During  his  Wanderjahre  he  acquired  so 
high  and  widespread  a  reputation  that  Cicero,  writing  from 
Asia  Minor  in  February,  B.C.  50,  to  Appius  Claudius,  then 
censor  in  Rome,  advised  him  to  direct  his  attention  to  what 
Athenodorus,  son  of  Sandon,  says  about  nobility.^^  As  it 
seems  highly  improbable  that  Athenodorus  had  come  to 
Rome  before  51  B.C.  (when  Cicero  went  away  to  the  East), 
it  is  evident  that  the  latter  must  have  learned  about  his 
opinions  from  his  writings,  and  advised  Claudius  to  study 
some  treatise  by  him  on  moral  philosophy.  We  can  hardly 
suppose  that  this  great  reputation  had  been  acquired  before 
he  was  twenty-three  ;  and  therefore  74  must  be  assumed  as 
the  year  of  his  birth.  An  earlier  date  is  impossible,  for  he 
was  living  as  late  as  A.D.  7. 

Athenodorus  was  lecturing  at  Apollonia  when  the  youth- 
ful Augustus  came  there  to  finish  his  education  in  the  autumn 
of  45  B.C.  In  the  six  months  which  Augustus  spent  there 
the  Tarsian  philosopher  acquired  a  life-long  influence  over 
his'  nind.  It  can  have  been  no  ordinary  man  who  so  deeply 
impressed  a  subtle  and  self-reliant  character  like  Augustus. 
When  the  latter  returned  to  Rome  to  take  up  the  inheritance 
of  his  uncle  Julius  Caesar  in  March,  44  B.C.,  Athenodorus 
followed  him.  In  November  of  that  year  he  was  consulted 
by  Cicero,  and  prepared  for  his  use  in  his  treatise  De  Officiis 
an  abstract  of  Posidonius's  opinions  on  duty:  it  is  clear 
from  Cicero's  words  ®*  that  Athenodorus  was  then  in  Rome. 


XX.   Athenodorus  of  Tarsus  219 

He  remained  many  years  in  Rome,  enjoying  a  position  of 
trust  and  influence  with  Augustus.  The  relations  between 
them  were  creditable  to  both.  Augustus  is  said  to  have  been 
guided  by  the  wise  advice  of  the  philosopher ;  and  Atheno- 
dorus never  abused  the  influence  that  he  enjoyed.  A  story 
which  is  related  by  Dion  Cassius,  and  more  fully  by  Zonaras,"* 
shows  that  he  had  the  courage  to  run  serious  risk  in  his 
determination  to  rebuke  and  curb  the  faults  of  his  Imperial 
friend.  He  chanced  one  day  to  enter  the  house  of  a  noble 
Roman  friend,  and  found  the  family  in  affliction.  An  order 
had  come  from  Augustus  that  the  wife  of  this  noble  must 
go  instantly  to  meet  Augustus  in  the  palace,  and  a  closely 
covered  litter  was  waiting  to  convey  her.  It  was  not  doubt- 
ful that  the  purpose  was  a  dishonourable  one ;  but  no  one 
in  this  Roman  high-born  family  dared  to  think  of  disobeying 
the  autocrat.  It  was  the  village-born  philosopher  who  was 
bold  enough  to  do  so. 

Athenodorus  immediately  offered  his  services.  He  took 
his  place  in  the  litter,  with  a  drawn  sword  in  his  hand. 
When  he  had  been  carried  thus  into  Augustus's  chamber 
and  the  litter  was  set  down,  he  leaped  out  suddenly,  sword 
in  hand,  exclaiming,  "Are  you  not  afraid  lest  some  one 
may  enter  like  this  and  assassinate  you  ? "  Augustus  was 
convinced,  and  Athenodorus's  influence  was  increased  by  the 
emperor's  gratitude. 

In  this  incident  we  recognize  a  man  who  possessed  a  clear 
insight  into  character,  quick  wit,  decision  and  courage. 
He  knew  both  what  he  ought  to  blame,  and  how  the  blame 
should  be  conveyed  so  as  to  impress  the  cautious  and  subtle 
mind  of  Augustus. 

In  his  old  age  Athenodorus  obtained  permission  to  retire 
to  his  native  city,  and,  as  he  was  taking  leave  and  embracing 


220  II.    Tarsus 

his  old  pupil,  he  imparted  his  last  piece  of  advice,  "  When 
you  are  angry,  Caesar,  say  nothing  and  do  nothing  until 
you  have  repeated  to  yourself  the  letters  of  the  alphabet". 
Here  again  we  observe  the  watchful  affection  which  noted 
and  tried  to  guard  against  the  faults  of  his  friend.  Augustus, 
taking  his  hand  and  saying,  "  I  have  still  need  of  you," 
detained  him  a  year  longer,  quoting  the  Greek  poet's  word, 
"  Silence,  too,"  i.e.  the  silence  of  trusty  companionship,  quite 
as  much  as  military  service,  "  brings  a  reward,  gained  not 
through  the  dangers  of  war,  but  in  the  life  of  peace".  This 
was  a  principle  of  Augustus's  policy,  expressed  by  Horace 
in  the  second  Ode  of  the  third  book  (one  of  a  group  of  six 
thoroughly  political  poems),  est  et  fideli  tuta  silentio  metres :  ^ 
the  emperor  recognised  and  rewarded  two  careers  of  duty, 
one  in  war,  one  in  the  civil  service. 

As  Athenodorus  seems  to  have  spent  his  life  near  Augustus 
from  45  B.C.  until  he  retired  to  Tarsus  about  15  B.C.,  it 
must  have  been  during  those  early  years  which  (as  we  saw) 
he  probably  spent  in  travel,  that  he  visited  Petra,  in  the 
desert  east  of  the  Dead  Sea.  He  related  with  admiration 
that,  whereas  the  many  strangers  whom  he  saw  there, 
Romans  and  others,  were  frequently  engaged  in  lawsuits 
against  one  another  or  against  the  natives,  none  of  the 
natives  ever  were  involved  in  any  dispute  with  each  other, 
but  all  lived  in  perfect  mutual  harmony.  Clement  of 
Alexandria  quotes  from  him  a  statement  that  Sesostris 
the  Egyptian  king,  after  conquering  many  peoples  among 
the  Greeks,  brought  back  artists  with  him  to  Egypt,  and 
thus  explained  the  origin  of  a  statue  of  Sarapis.  He  may, 
therefore,  have  visited  Egypt  as  well  as  Petra,  and  thence 
derived  illustrations  for  his  philosophical  writings  and 
lectures.^^ 


XX.  Atkenodorus  of  Tarsus  221 

Athenodorus  is  called  a  philosopher  of  nature  (^uo-i/co?)  by 
Eusebius,  and  with  his  master  Posidonius,  he  is  twice  quoted 
by  Strabo  for  his  opinions  on  the  ocean  and  tides.^^  Whether 
he  or  the  other  Athenodorus  of  Tarsus  was  the  author  of  a 
work  on  his  fatherland,  quoted  by  Stephanus  Byzantinus,  is 
uncertain ;  but  as  the  work  gives  a  different  account  of  the 
origin  of  Tarsus  from  that  which  is  stated  by  Strabo,  the 
friend  of  our  Athenodorus,  Muller  infers,  with  much  prob- 
ability, that  the  author  was  a  different  Athenodorus. 

The  work  by  which  he  impressed  the  world  was  in  the 
department  of  moral  philosophy;  and  in  his  treatises  he 
embodied  a  noble  and  dignified  view  of  human  life  and 
duty.  On  that  account  he  was  commended  by  Cicero  and 
quoted  by  Seneca,  from  whom  is  derived  the  little  that  we 
know  of  his  teaching. 

Seneca,  when  he  mentions  that  in  society  some  reckon 
to  our  account  the  social  attentions  which  we  pay  them 
as  if  they  were  putting  us  in  their  debt  by  admitting  us  to 
the  privilege  of  their  acquaintance,  quotes  the  saying  of 
Athenodorus  that  he  would  not  even  go  to  dine  with  a 
person  who  would  not  think  the  guest  was  conferring  an 
obligation  by  resorting  to  his  house  {de  Tranquill.  Animae, 
7).  In  another  place  Seneca  quotes  at  considerable  length 
his  opinion  that,  in  a  better  state  of  society,  it  would  be  the 
best  way  of  life  to  exercise  and  strengthen  one's  character 
by  engaging  in  public  life ;  but,  as  society  is  at  present  con- 
stituted, since  ambition  and  calumny  are  rampant,  and  the 
simple,  candid  person  is  constantly  exposed  to  misrepresen- 
tation, a  noble  nature  is  bound  to  abstain  from  public  life : 
yet  even  in  private  life  a  great  mind  can  find  free  scope, 
and  be  useful  to  private  friends  and  to  the  whole  body  of 
the  people  by  wise  speech  and  good  counsel  {de  Tranquill, 


222  II.   Tarsus 

Animae,  3).  This  passage,  with  its  lofty  view  of  life,  bears  a 
distinct  resemblance  to  that  conception  of  life  as  a  warfare 
against  evil,  which  Seneca  and  Paul  express  in  remarkably 
similar  terms. 

Again,  in  his  Moral  Epistles,  i.  10,  5,  Seneca  quotes  from 
him  the  striking  sentiment,  "  Know  that  you  are  free  from 
[all  passions  only  when  you  have  reached  the  point  that  you 
lask  God  for  nothing  except  what  you  can  ask  openly,"  and 
!  he  goes  on  to  say,  in  the  spirit  if  not  in  the  words  of  Atheno- 
dorus,  "  So  live  with  men,  as  if  God  saw  you  ;  so  speak  with 
God,  as  if  men  were  listening". 

He  wrote  a  treatise  addressed  to  Octavia,  the  sister  of 
Augustus,  of  which  nothing  is  known,  but  which  may,  per- 
haps, have  been  a  consolation  on  the  death  of  her  son, 
Marcellus — a  kind  of  work  which  was  reckoned  specially 
appropriate  for  philosophers  in  Roman  society,  and  of  which 
Seneca's  Consolation  to  his  own  mother  Helvia  may  be 
taken  as  a  specimen. 

In  this  summary  of  the  few  known  events  of  his  life 
Athenodorus  stands  before  us  as  a  personage  of  real  distinc- 
tion and  lofty  character,  no  mere  empty  lecturer  and  man 
of  words,  but  a  man  of  judgment,  good  sense,  courage  and 
self-respect,  who  stooped  to  no  base  subservience  to  a  despot, 
but  rebuked  his  faults  sharply,  when  the  greatest  in  Rome 
were  cowering  in  abject  submission  before  him,  a  man  of 
affairs  who  knew  what  were  his  limits  and  did  not  overstep 
them,  and  a  writer,  every  one  of  whose  few  preserved  say- 
ings is  noble  and  generous.  The  opinion  has  been  stated 
in  St.  Paul  the  Traveller,  p.  354,  and  is  still  maintained  by 
the  writer,  that  the  remarkable  resemblance,  both  verbal 
and  in  spirit,  which  has  often  been  observed  between  the 
sentiments  expressed  by  Seneca  and  the  words  of  St.  Paul  ^* 


XX.  Athenodorus  of  Tarsus  223 

is  due  at  least  in  part  to  the  influence  exercised  on  both 
by  Athenodorus ;  and  if  this  be  true,  every  one  must  admit 
that  no  writer  of  antiquity,  so  far  as  we  i<novv,  better  de- 
served, both  by  his  Hfe  and  by  his  sentiments,  to  exercise 
such  an  influence  on  two  of  the  greatest  figures  in  the  history 
of  the  first  century  after  Christ.  Paul  can  hardly  have  been 
more  than  an  infant  when  the  greatest  of  pagan  Tarsians 
died.  But  the  influence  of  Athenodorus  did  not  die  with 
him.  He  was  long  worshipped  as  a  hero  by  his  country ,^^ 
and  his  teaching  was  doubtless  influential  in  the  University 
of  Tarsus  after  his  death. 

This  account  has  been  strictly  confined  l.o  the  exact  facts 
that  are  recorded.  It  would  be  possible  from  the  analogy 
of  other  cities  and  from  the  general  circumstances  of  con- 
temporary history  to  restore  something  like  a  picture  of 
Athenodorus  in  his  Tarsian  activity — for  his  retirement  from 
the  work  of  a  teacher  in  Rome  was  merely  the  beginning  of 
a  new  period  of  practical  work.  But  that  imaginative  way 
of  picturing  what  is  likely  to  have  occurred  belongs  to  the 
province  of  historical  romance  rather  than  of  history. 

Athenodorus  was  succeeded  in  his  commanding  position 
in  the  Tarsian  state  by  Nestor,  another  Tarsian  philosopher 
(of  the  Academic,  not  the  Stoic,  school),  who  had  risen  at 
Rome  to  influence  and  trust  in  the  Imperial  family  and  had 
been  tutor  to  Augustus's  nepbew  and  intended  successor 
Marcellus  about  26-23  B.C.  Nestor  lived  to  the  age  of 
ninety-two  and  was  still  living  when  Strabo  wrote  about 
A.D.  19.  He  had  doubtless  been  recommended  by  Atheno- 
dorus to  Augustus.  Thus  Tarsus  was  swayed  in  a  critical 
period  of  its  history  by  a  succession  of  philosophers,  who  com- 
bined the  learning  of  the  schools  with  that  practical  sense 
which  alone  could  have  won  the  confidence  of  Augustus. 


224  I^-    Tarsus 


§  XXI.    The  Reform  of  the  Tarsian  Constitution 

BY  AtHENODORUS. 

It  is  not  possible  to  fix  the  time  when  Athenodorus 
returned  to  Tarsus ;  but,  as  he  was  an  old  man  (so  both 
Plutarch  and  Strabo  say),  it  can  hardly  have  been  earlier  than 
15  B.C.,  when  he  was  in  his  sixtieth  year;  and  it  is  not 
likely  to  have  been  much  later,  as  he  found  Boethos  still 
influential  in  the  city  and  busied  with  his  gang  in  harrying 
the  State.  The  terms  in  which  Strabo  describes  the  situa- 
tion when  Athenodorus  returned,  suggest  that  the  interval 
since  the  fall  of  Antony  had  not  been  very  long.  In  Tarsus 
it  was  a  case  of  democracy  run  to  seed,  emancipated  from 
the  limits  of  order  and  even  of  decency,  contemptuous  of 
obedience  or  principle  :  such  was  always  the  result  of  Greek 
institutions  when  divorced  from  a  general  sentiment  of 
patriotism  and  religion  (the  two  were  almost  the  same  in 
the  Hellenic  thought),  which  might  enforce  a  certain  standard 
of  public  action  and  morality. 

Greek  democratic  government  demanded  a  high  level  of 
education  and  thought  among  the  population,  and  quickly 
resulted  in  anarchy  when  this  condition  was  not  supplied. 
The  demand  for  education  was  strong  in  the  democratically 
governed  cities  and  the  care  taken  to  provide  it  was  the 
best  feature  of  their  administration ;  but  the  amalgamation 
of  democratic  government  and  the  capricious  autocracy  of 
Antony  had  been  fatal, 

Athenodorus  tried,  first  of  all,  the  method  of  constitutional 
agitation  for  reform,  attempting  by  reason  and  argument  to 
restrain  Boethos  and  his  gang,  and  to  reintroduce  a  higher 
standard  of  municipal  morality.  After  a  time,  finding  that 
such  means  were  unavailing,  and  that  his  appeals  were  only 


XXI.    The  Refoj'^n  of  the  Tarsian  Constitution     225 

met  with  the  grossest  insult,  he  made  use  of  the  supreme 
powers'^  with  which  he  had  been  armed  by  Augustus  and 
which,  at  first,  he  had  apparently  kept  private.  He  con- 
demned the  whole  gang  to  exile  and  ejected  them  from 
Tarsus,  and  revolutionised  the  constitution  of  the  city  J' 
This  event  may,  perhaps,  be  dated  about  10  B.C.,  allowing  a 
space  of  five  years  (which  is  probably  the  extremest  possible 
limit  to  the  patience  of  the  philosopher), 

Strabo  does  not  state  the  character  of  the  new  system 
which  Athenodorus  introduced,  but  merely  describes  the 
intense  love  for  education  which  characterised  the  Tarsians 
in  his  time — he  was  writing  about  A.D.  19 — and  evidently 
regards  the  reforms  of  Athenodorus,  who  was  his  personal 
friend,  as  having  been  extremely  successful. 

The  general  character  of  the  new  constitution  which  was 
introduced  into  Tarsus  can  be  determined  from  the  tone  of 
the  Imperial  policy  throughout  the  Empire  and  from  the 
slight  references  made  incidentally  in  the  two  speeches 
which  Dion  Chrysostom  addressed  to  the  Tarsians  about 
A.D.  112.  Although  the  Roman  Imperial  system  was  es- 
tablished through  the  victory  of  the  democracy,  it  was  a 
democracy  led  by  a  dictator;  and  Augustus  recognised  from 
a  very  early  stage  in  his  career  that  he  must  found  his 
autocracy  on  oligarchy,  not  on  democracy.  His  aim  was  to 
substitute  for  the  old  oligarchy  of  Roman  nobles,  who  had 
formerly  opposed  him  and  could  not  be  trusted  to  support 
his  rule,  a  new  oligarchy  of  official  service  and  merit. "^  He 
did  not  try  to  force  his  policy  on  too  rapidly,  and  he  was 
ready  and  eager  to  admit  into  the  new  oligarchy  all  members 
of  the  old  oligarchy,  who  could  be  induced  to  accommodate 
themselves  to  it ;  but  he  and  the  rest  of  the  early  Emperors 
were  fully  aware  that  their  greatest  danger  lay  in  possible 


I  c. 


226  II.    Tarsus 

rivals  among  the  old  nobility,  and  they  encouraged  and  de- 
veloped the  rise  of  an  official  class,  whose  career  should  lie 
within  the  limits  of  the  Imperial  system,  and  who  should  be 
servants,  not  rivals,  of  the  reigning  Emperor. 

A  bureaucratic  oligarchy  is  the  necessary  accompaniment 
of  an  autocracy,  which  cannot  maintain  itself  alone  without 
some  body  of  devoted  agents  and  servants  to  rest  upon  ;  but 
an  educated  people  is  its  enemy/^^  Thus  when  the  popular 
party  under  the  leadership  of  a  dictator  had  triumphed,  the 
power  of  the  people  ended ;  and  a  narrow  oligarchy  aided 
the  Imperial  despot  to  rule  over  and  for  a  people  among 
whom  education  gradually  died  out.  The  saving  grace  of 
the  Empire  was  the  memory  of  its  origin  and  the  compelling 
force  of  that  memory.  Centuries  elapsed  before  the  Emperors 
were  able  quite  to  forget  that  they  had  been  placed  in  power 
as  the  champions  of  the  people,  and  that  the  theoretical 
expression  of  their  authority  was  the  Tribunician  power  by 
which  the  years  of  their  reign  were  reckoned.  In  numerous 
edicts  the  Emperors  expressed  their  conception  of  their  prime 
duty,  to  be  ever  on  the  outlook  for  opportunities  to  benefit 
their  people,  to  think  for  them,  and  to  direct  them  for  their 
own  good  ;  but  it  was  no  part  of  the  Imperial  duty  to  educate 
the  people  up  to  the  level  of  thinking  for  themselves  and 
governing  themselves. 

In  the  cities  of  the  Empire  the  same  process  was  en- 
couraged :  the  power  of  the  people  was  curtailed,  and  an  oli- 
garchical regime  was  gradually  introduced.  Tarsus  was  one 
of  the  first  examples  of  the  new  system,  and  Athenodorus 
was  the  instrument  through  whom  the  Emperor  acted.  A 
certain  property  qualification  was  required  for  citizenship. 
Those  who  had  less  than  the  requisite  fortune  were  degraded 
from  the  foll  of  citizens.     In  the  time  of  Dion  Chrysostom 


XXI.    The  Reform  of  the  Tarsian  Constitution     227 

these  unclassed  people  of  Tarsus  were  called  "  Linen-workers," 
probably  a  cant  name  which  had  gradually  established  itself 
in  common  use.  They  were  the  plebeians  of  Tarsus,  in  a 
sense  citizens,  because  they  were  inhabitants  of  the  city,  but 
yet  (as  Dion  says)  not  citizens,  because  they  had  not  the 
civic  rights. 

The  citizens  or  burgesses  of  Tarsus,  therefore,  were  a 
timocratic  aristocracy,  whose  status  rested  on  a  property 
qualification,  and  who  exercised  the  power  of  government 
and  held  the  right  of  election  and  voting  generally.  Within 
this  oligarchic  body,  again,  there  was  an  inner  aristocracy 
consisting  of  the  Roman  citizens,  viz.,  the  families  which  had 
raised  themselves  so  conspicuously  in  the  city  by  wealth 
or  by  high  office  or,  as  was  usually  the  case,  by  both,  as  to 
be  admitted  into  the  governing  class  of  the  Empire.  In 
estimating  the  position  of  the  young  Paul,  as  he  grew  up  in 
Tarsus,  this  privileged  and  aristocratic  position  which  he 
inherited  must  be  taken  into  account. 

As  a  general  rule  it  was  from  the  local  aristocracy  that 
the  leading  figures  in  Anatolian  history  during  the  Roman 
period  sprang.  The  lower  classes  were  cut  off  by  a  chasm 
difficult  to  cross  from  the  opportunity  of  gaining  the  educa- 
tion that  was  indispensable  to  advancement.  For  example, 
the  aristocratic  tone  of  Basil  and  his  brother  Gregory,  during 
the  fourth  century,  makes  itself  clearly  felt  in  their  writino-s. 
They  belonged  to  the  class  of  landed  proprietors  whose 
fortune  opened  to  them  the  path  of  education.  The  scorn 
of  Gregory  for  the  low  birth  and  poverty  of  the  heretic 
Eunomius  is  quite  as  conspicuous  as  his  hatred  for  the  heter- 
odoxy of  his  opponent's  religious  views.'^^  Education  was 
indispensable  to  advancement  and  influence  under  the  Em- 
pire ;  even  a  soldier  could  rarely  -ise  without  education ;  a 


2  28  II.    Tarsus 

civilian  practically  never.  The  vice  of  the  Imperial  system 
was  that  the  distinction  of  educated  and  uneducated  became 
a  matter  of  birth  and  caste,  and  that  the  lines  of  class  dis- 
tinction grew  harder  and  deeper  until  they  became  impass- 
able barriers.  The  able  freed  men  were  only  partially  an 
exception  ;  they  could  make  money,  and  a  career  was  open 
to  their  sons;  but  their  opportunities  were  in  considerable 
degree  due  to  the  aristocratic  families  of  which  they  were 
dependents. 

§  XXII.    The  University  of  Tarsus. 

No  evidence  about  the  relation  of  the  Tarsian  city  govern- 
ment to  the  higher  education  of  the  inhabitants  has  been 
preserved.  From  the  analogy  of  other  Greek  and  Graeco- 
Asiatic  cities  we  may  infer  with  confidence  that  the  State 
exercised  some  authority  over  education,  and  that  systematic 
arrangements  were  made  to  ensure  that  a  proper  supply  of 
teachers  and  lecturers  was  ready  to  meet  the  requirements 
of  the  people :  the  intention  was  to  provide  public  instruction 
by  qualified  lecturers  in  all  the  branches  of  science  and 
literature^''  recognised  at  the  time.  This  involved  financial 
responsibilities  to  meet  expense  incurred  by  the  State, 
officials  of  various  kinds,  in  short  a  certain  organisation  ;  but 
of  the  details  of  this  organisation  in  Tarsus  we  are  entirely 
ignorant  There  are  some  isolated  facts  mentioned  in  in- 
scriptions regarding  other  cities,  but  this  is  not  the  place  to 
attempt  to  collect  them  and  to  use  them  in  illustration  of 
the  facts  recorded  in  literature,  especially  in  the  biographies 
of  the  Greek  philosophers.  In  general  terms  it  may  be 
stated  that  in  accordance  with  the  Greek  ideal  of  city  life,  the 
sole  ultimate  authority  over  the  University  lay  in  the  hands 
of  the  people.     All  teaching  in  the  city  was  for  the  benefit 


XXII.    The   University  of  Tarsus  229 

of  the  people,  and  the  popular  assembly  alone  had  the  right 
to  dictate  the  manner  and  the  terms  according  to  which  it 
should  be  given.  This  authority  was  similar  to  that  which 
Parliament  exercises  in  the  last  resort  in  our  country,  but 
more  direct  and  practically  effective  ;  and  the  State  was  then 
much  less  willing  to  permit  a  University  corporation  to 
regulate  its  own  affairs  in  ordinary  course.  Such  regulation 
as  did  then  exist  was  to  a  much  greater  degree  exercised  by 
the  municipal  authority  than  is  now  the  case.  Edinburgh 
University,  in  its  close  subordination  to  the  Town  Council — 
as  was  the  rule  until  about  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century — showed  more  resemblance  than  any  other  of  our 
Universities  to  the  old  Greek  system. 

How  the  authority  Avas  exercised  in  Tarsus  we  have  no 
means  of  determining.  The  story  of  Athenodorus  (see  §  XX.), 
who  was  undoubtedly  authoritative  in  the  University  and  in 
the  city  alike,  shows  that  there  was  a  real  connection  between 
them ;  but  it  was  only  under  exceptional  conditions  that 
a  man  who  ranked  primarily  as  the  leading  man  in  the 
University  could  exercise  such  influence  in  the  city.  When 
he  returned  to  settle  in  Tarsus  he  tried  the  experiment  of 
relying  on  the  natural  influence  which  a  man  of  his  stand- 
ing and  experience  enjoyed  in  a  free  community ;  and  this 
experiment  was  a  failure.  He  then  had  recourse  to  the  ex- 
ceptional and  unconstitutional  powers  which  the  Emperor 
had  entrusted  to  him. 

In  the  Greek  cities  generally,  to  a  much  greater  extent 
than  with  us,  the  lecturers  in  the  University  looked  directly 
to  the  city  authority,  so  far  as  they  looked  to  any  controlling 
power.  To  a  much  greater  extent  than  with  us  they  attained 
their  position  by  a  sort  of  natural  selection  and  survival  of 
the  fittest.      A  lecturer  was  permitted  to  enter  any  city  as  a 


230  II.    Tarsus 

wandering  scholar,  and  might  begin  publicly  to  dispute  and 
to  lecture  (as  Paul  did  in  Athens  and  in  Ephesus  and  else- 
where), if  he  could  attract  an  audience.  The  city  could,  if 
it  thought  fit,  interfere  to  take  cognisance  of  his  lecturing, 
and  either  stop  him,  if  it  seemed  advisable,  or  give  him  for- 
mal permission  to  continue.  Apparently  there  was  no  de- 
finite or  uniform  rule  in  the  matter,  but  each  individual  case 
was  determined  on  its  own  merits.  Any  person  was  free  to 
call  attention  in  the  public  interest  to  a  new  lecturer ;  that 
was  a  practically  universal  rule  in  ancient  cities :  the  State 
depended  on  individuals  to  invoke  its  intervention.  When 
thus  called  upon,  the  State  authority  decided  whether  there 
was  any  need  to  take  cognisance  of  the  matter :  the  decision 
would  depend  partly  on  the  information  laid  before  it  and 
on  the  weight  which  the  informer  carried,  partly  on  the 
appearance  made  by  the  newcomer  when  he  was  examined. 
All  that  is  a  universal  and  necessary  feature  of  Greek  city 
government ;  and  it  implies  that  there  was  some  public 
board  or  council  or  individual  magistrate  before  whom  in- 
formation could  be  laid.  In  Athens  it  seems  certain  that  the 
court  of  Areopagus  was  the  authoritative  body.  In  Ephesus 
it  may  possibly  have  been  a  court  of  Asiarchs,  Acts  xix.  31, 
men  of  the  highest  standing,  though  not  officials  of  the  city. 
As  to  Tarsus  we  have  no  information. 

If  the  new  lecturer,  when  attention  was  called  to  him,  was 
found  suitable  and  approved,  this  must  have  given  him  a 
regular  and  legal  standing.  If  disapproval  were  expressed, 
he  would  probably  find  that  it  was  advisable  to  try  his  for- 
tune in  another  city.  Paul  apparently  did  so  even  when  his 
case  was  adjourned  for  further  consideration  ;  and  possibly  in 
such  cases  that  verdict  may  have  been  understood  as  one  of 
mild  disapproval.     In  cases  where  grave  disapproval  was  felt 


XXII.    The   University  of  Tarsus  231 

the  city  had  always  the  right  to  expel  any  person  whose  pres- 
ence was  for  its  disadvantage  ;  though,  under  Roman  rule,  such 
right  of  expulsion  was  certainly  liable  to  revision  at  the  hands 
of  the  Imperial  officials,  if  the  expelled  person  was  sufficiently 
influential  to  be  able  to  appeal  to  a  high  Roman  officer. 

As  to  the  position  of  a  lecturer  who  had  been  approved, 
we  have  very  little  information ;  and  practice  doubtless  varied 
in  different  cities.  In  some  cases  he  enjoyed  a  salary  from 
the  State,  How  far  he  was  allowed  to  charge  fees  is  un- 
certain ;  probably  there  was  no  uniform  rule ;  Paul  charged 
no  fees,  and  his  practice  was  probably  not  unique,  but  he 
certainly  makes  rather  a  merit  of  the  fact  that  neither  in- 
dividuals nor  communities  were  put  to  expense  by  him,  and 
he  distinctly  states  it  as  a  general  mle,  that  the  labourer  was 
worthy  of  his  hire  and  that  payment  for  instruction  was 
deserved.  It  would  however  be  in  accordance  with  the  spirit 
of  ancient  life  that  the  lecturers  depended  for  their  livelihood 
more  on  special  gifts  from  grateful  individuals  than  on  fees 
charged  universally  for  the  privilege  of  listening. 

To  speak  about  the  University  of  Tarsus  is  to  a  certain 
degree  a  misnomer,  applying  a  modern  name  to  an  ancient 
institution.  But  there  are  really  quite  as  great  differences 
in  character  among  the  various  modem  Universities  as  there 
are  between  a  typical  modem  and  a  typical  Greek  University. 
The  essential  facts  of  University  life,  freedom  for  the  teacher 
to  give  instruction,  freedom  for  the  disciple  to  listen,  to 
study  and  to  leam,  were  Hellenic ;  and  the  restriction  of 
that  freedom  in  various  ways  in  many  modern  Universities 
might  with  greater  justice  be  deemed  a  good  reason  for  re- 
fusing the  title  to  them,  than  the  looseness  of  organisation  in 
an  ancient  Hellenic  University  for  denying  it  the  same  title. 

Strabo,  who  is  practically  our  sole  authority,  gives  a  very 


232  n.    Tarsus 

sympathetic  and  favourable  picture  of  the  University  of 
Tarsus.  He  was  perhaps  biassed  to  some  extent  by  his 
friendship  for  Athenodorus ;  but  he  was  an  eye-witness  and 
an  authority  of  the  first  value.  He  praises  highly  the 
zeal  for  philosophy  and  the  whole  range  of  education  which 
characterised  the  people  of  Tarsus  in  his  time.  In  this 
respect  they  surpassed  Athens  and  Alexandreia  and  every 
other  seat  of  learning,  for  they  not  merely  formed  the  entire 
audience  in  their  own  University  (to  which  no  students  ever 
came  from  outside),  but  also  sought  to  complete  their  edu- 
cation by  resorting  to  foreign  Universities ;  and  those  who 
educated  themselves  in  that  way  were  glad  to  remain  abroad 
and  few  of  them  returned  home.  On  the  contrary,  other 
educational  centres  attracted  many  eager  students  from  out- 
side, who  remained  there  gladly ;  whereas  few  of  the  popula- 
tion in  those  centres  sought  education  either  abroad  01  at 
home.  Only  Alexandreia  both  attracted  many  foreign 
students  and  sent  forth  a  large  number  of  her  own  young 
citizens  to  study  abroad. 

This  account  is  far  from  suggesting  that  the  Tarsian  Uni- 
versity was  one  of  the  great  Universities  of  the  Hellenic 
world.  On  the  contrary,  Strabo  evidently  regarded  it  as  a 
young  seat  of  learning,  rather  provincial  and  obscure,  situated 
in  a  great  commercial  centre,  where  there  was  an  eager 
desire  for  knowledge,  and  where  people  had  the  travelling 
instinct  strongly  developed,  so  that  they  filled  their  own 
University  and  after  gaining  from  it  all  that  it  could  give 
went  forth  in  large  numbers  to  study  in  the  more  famous 
Universities  and  often  to  settle  there  permanently.  Yet  it 
is  sometimes  stated  by  modern  writers  that  the  Tarsian 
school  of  philosophy  at  the  beginning  of  our  era  surpassed 
those  of  Athens  and  Alexandreia ;  ^^  it  surpassed  them  only 


XXII.    The  University  of  Tarsus  233 


in  respect  of  the  eagerness  of  its  students  and  in  filling  its 
class-room  with  its  own  people,  but  it  did  not  surpass  them 
in  equipment  or  in  standing  and  fame  as  a  seat  of  learning. 
Nor  is  it  even  correct  to  say  that  Tarsus  was  one  of  the  three 
great  University  cities  of  the  Mediterranean  world.^^  It 
may  perhaps  be  inferred  from  Strabo's  words  that  Athens 
and  Alexandreia  were  the  two  outstanding  Universities  of 
the  Hellenic  world ;  but  it  is  clear  also  that  various  other 
Universities  were  known  to  him,  which  drew  foreign  students 
to  study  in  their  halls. 

While  Strabo  shows  clearly  that  Tarsus  was  not  one  of 
the  great  Universities  in  general  estimation,  he  shows  also 
that  it  was  rich  in  what  constitutes  the  true  excellence  and 
strength  of  a  University,  intense  enthusiasm  and  desire  for 
knowledge  among  the  students  and  great  ability  and  ex- 
perience among  some  at  least  of  the  teachers.  The  collision 
between  Athenodorus  and  the  gang  of  Boethos  (as  already 
described)  may  be  taken  to  some  extent  as  a  struggle  for 
mastery  between  the  University  and  the  uneducated  rabble, 
which  had  attained  power  partly  through  exceptional  cir- 
cumstances and  partly  through  the  deep-seated  faults  of  the 
Greek  democratic  system.  The  coarseness  and  vulgarity  of 
the  latter  ought  not  to  he  quoted  (as  they  have  been  quoted 
by  Dean  Farrar)  as  an  example  of  University  conduct  and 
life  in  Tarsus. 

Strabo's  account  of  the  Tarsian  enthusiasm  for  Hellenic 
education  is  very  different  from  the  picture  given  by  Dion 
Chrysostom,  who  describes  Tarsus  about  a  century  later 
as  essentially  a  non-Hellenic  and  Oriental  town,  devoid  of 
all  the  true  qualities  of  Hellenism,  and  possessing  only  one 
excellence,  viz.,  that  it  enforced  the  strictest  and  closest 
veiling  of  women  when  they  walked  in  the  streets.     Strabo 


234  II'    Tarsus 

suggests  in  his  rather  highly  coloured  picture  that  the 
Tarsians  crowded  their  own  and  foreign  Universities.  Rome 
itself  "  was  full  of  Tarsians,"  some  of  whom  exercised  a  real 
power  in  Roman  history  through  their  personal  influence  with 
the  Imperial  family,  and  with  other  Romans  of  high  rank. 
Besides  Athenodorus  and  Nestor,  already  mentioned,  the 
older  Athenodorus,  sut named  Kordylion,  was  the  fiiend  of 
the  younger  Cato,  and  died  in  his  house.  Strabo  names 
many  other  Tarsians  who  had  been  distinguished  in  literature 
and  philosophy,  Antipater,  head  of  the  Stoic  School  in 
Athens  and  the  chief  opponent  of  Carneades,  Ploutiades  and 
Diogenes,  both  much-travelled  philosophers,  the  latter  also 
a  poet,  Artemidorus  and  Diodorus,  and  also  a  tragic  poet 
Dionysides,  one  of  the  seven  writers  called  "  the  Pleiad ". 
Later,  Plutarch  mentions  Diodorus  as  having  visited  Britain 
and  Egypt  and  the  Erythraean  Sea  and  the  land  of  the 
Troglodytes,  led  by  his  scientific  curiosity. 

Philostratus,  however,  writing  at  the  beginning  of  the 
third  century,  gives  a  very  unfavourable  picture  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Tarsus  in  the  reign  of  Tiberius  (about  the  year 
that  Strabo  was  writing),  and  mentions  that  Apollonius  of 
Tyana,  when  he  went  to  study  there,  was  so  offended  with 
the  manners  of  the  citizens,  their  love  of  pleasure,  their  in- 
solence, and  their  fondness  for  fine  clothing,  that  he  left  the 
University  and  went  to  continue  his  studies  at  Aegae,  on 
the  Cilician  coast  farther  to  the  east.  But  the  work  of 
Philostratus  is  unhistorical ;  in  some  degree  he  may  be  ex- 
pressing the  opinion  entertained  about  the  wealthy  Tarsus 
in  his  own  country  and  time,  but  to  a  large  extent  he  was 
guided,  I  think,  by  the  criticisms  which  Dion  Chrysostom 
freely  uttered  in  his  two  Orations  to  the  Tarsians ;  and  can- 
not be  seriously  weighed  against  Strabo's  authority. 


XXIII.    Tarsus  under  the  Empire  235 


Tarsus  in  the  reign  of  Augustus  is  the  one  example  known 
in  history  of  a  State  ruled  by  a  University  acting  through  its 
successive  principals.  For  that  reason  alone,  as  a  unique 
experiment  in  government,  it  has  a  permanent  interest  for 
modern  scholars.  Unfortunately,  it  is  not  easy  to  determine 
whether  the  experiment  worked  well.  According  to  Strabo, 
a  singularly  good  witness,  it  succeeded.  The  facts  of  history 
show  that  the  city  was  extraordinarily  prosperous  for  cen- 
turies afterwards.  The  faults  which  Dion  describes  in  it  are 
those  that  accompany  overflowing  prosperity ;  and  the  lack 
of  the  Hellenic  spirit,  which  he  blames,  was  really  a  proof 
that  Hellenism  had  met  and  accommodated  itself  to  Orient- 
alism. It  is  characteristic  of  the  general  tendency  of  Univer- 
sity life  in  a  prosperous  and  peaceful  Empire,  that  the  rule 
of  the  Tarsian  University  was  marked  by  a  strong  reaction 
towards  oligarchy  and  a  curtailment  of  the  democracy  :  that 
also  belongs  to  the  Oriental  spirit,  which  was  so  strong  in  the 
city.  But  the  crowning  glory  of  Tarsus,  the  reason  for  its 
undying  interest  to  the  whole  world,  is  that  it  produced  the 
Apostle  Paul ;  that  it  was  the  one  city  which  was  suited 
by  its  equipoise  between  the  Asiatic  and  the  Western  spirit  to 
mould  the  character  of  the  great  Helleiu'st  Jew  ;  and  that  it 
nourished  in  him  a  strong  sense  of  loyalty  and  patriotism  as 
the  "  citizen  of  no  mean  city  ". 

§  XXni.  Tarsus  under  the  Empire. 
For  several  centuries  after  the  time  of  Augustus  Tarsian 
history  is  a  monotonous  record  of  even,  uneventful  prosperity 
and  peace.  The  faults  which  Dion  Chrysostom  blames  in  his 
two  Tarsian  orations  are  those  which  are  fostered  by  too  great 
prosperity,  viz.,  haughtiness,  unwillingness  to  obey  the  govern- 
ment, and  disposition  to  quarrel  with  rival  cities :  the  last 


236  II.    Tarsus 

fault  was  common  to  most  of  the  great  Graeco-Roman  cities 
of  the  East.  There  was  h'ttle  real  and  healthy  competition 
between  Tarsus  and  the  cities  which  it  regarded  as  rivals, 
Mallos  and  Adana  in  the  first  century,  Anazarbus  at  a  later 
time.  Municipal  quarrels  were  chiefly  empty  rivalry  about 
titles  and  dignity  and  precedence,  and  were  calculated  rather 
to  make  the  cities  a  subject  of  contemptuous  ridicule  in  the 
estimation  of  the  Romans  than  to  stimulate  them  to  surpass 
their  rivals  in  real  magnificence  and  great  public  works. 
Yet  even  under  these  foolish  quarrels  there  lay  a  basis  of 
reality,  as  Anazarbus  represents  a  new  growth  in  the  upper 
Cilician  plain,  Mallos  at  least  a  historical  memory. 

In  truth  Tarsus  during  the  first  century  was  the  one  great 
city  of  Cilicia.  The  others  were  quite  secondary.  The 
coinage  of  Tarsus  far  surpasses  in  mass  that  of  all  the  other 
cities  of  the  Cilician  plain  combined.  Strabo  mentions  that 
it  ranked  as  metropolis  (of  Cilicia) ;  and  it  continued  to  be  so 
throughout  the  Imperial  time.  During  the  greater  part  of 
the  first  century  Cilicia  was  not  a  separate  Province,  but  an 
adjunct  to  Syria.  Syrian  troops  were  employed  there  in  case 
of  need,  and  the  supreme  authority  rested  with  the  Imperial 
Legate  of  Syria.  The  Province  contained  three  parts,  united 
in  loyal  service  to  the  Emperors  and  in  the  ritual  of  the 
established  Imperial  religion  as  "  the  Commune  of  Syria- 
Phoenice-Cilicia  ".  In  the  time  of  Vespasian,  probably,  this 
union  was  dissolved :  in  74  A.D.  the  dependent  kingdom  of 
Tracheia  Cilicia  was  taken  into  the  Empire  as  a  Province 
conjoined  with  the  Cilician  Plain,  and  Tarsus  was  metropolis 
of  the  Province. 

The  organisation  and  the  civilisation  of  the  Roman  Empire 
laid  a  strong  and  compelling  hand  upon  the  country,  and 
produced  remarkable  results  in  the  way  of  a  balance  and  equi- 


XXIII.    Tarsus  under  the  Empire 


237 


librium  between  the  opposing  forces  of  East  and  West,  which 
were  thus  united  in  a  mighty  harmony.  The  two  forces,  the 
Oriential  spirit  and  the  Western,  continued  each  in  full 
strength,  after  the  East  had  revived  and  begun  to  influence 
the  Empire  anew  in  many  ways,  by  peaceful  interpenetra- 
tion,  in  art  and  in  religion.  The  first  attempt  of  the  earlier 
Empire  to  impose  European  character  on  the  land  and  its 
Provinces  was  abandoned  definitely  by  Hadrian.  It  was  in 
all  probability  under  his  rule,  about  130-35,  that  the  south- 


FiG.  22. — The  Two  Temples  at  Tarsus  "  Common  to  Cilicia  "  with  a  gar- 
land above  them  ;  both  are  hexastyle.  Coin  struck  under  the  Emperor 
Commodus.     The  city  bears  the  names  of  Hadrian  and  Commodus. 

eastern  region  of  Asia  Minor  was  reorganised  as  the  Triple 
Province  Cilicia-Isauria-Lycaonia.  Tarsus  was  the  metro- 
polis and  president  of  the  "  Three  Eparchiae  ".'^ 

This  title  appears  for  the  first  time  on  its  coins  under 
Septimius  Severus,  195-2 11  A.D. ;  but  there  is  no  reason  to 
infer  that  the  title  was  then  first  instituted  ;  on  the  contrary, 
there  is  every  probability  that  Tarsus  was  metropolis  of  the 
Triple  Province  from  the  beginning.  It  was  only  in  the 
third  century  that  the  habit  of  inscribing  long  boastful  titles 
on  the  coins  of  the  city  was  carried  to  such  an  extreme.     The 


238 


1 1.    Tarsus 


Three  Eparchiae  were  never  united  in  a  single  nation  politi- 
cally or  a  single  Commune  in  the  Imperial  religion.  The 
Koinon  (Commune)  of  Lycaonia  was  distinct  from  the  Koinon 
of  Cilicia,  and  the  latter  probably  included  all  parts  of  Cilicia. 
Temples  of  the  Cilician  Commune  were  erected  at  Tarsus,^*' 
which  in  the  time  of  Commodus  places  on  its  coins  the  type 
of  two  temples  "Common  to  Cilicia";  these  temples  evi- 
dently were  dedicated  to  Hadrian  and  to  Commodus,  and 
they  carried  with  them  the  title  Neokoros,  and  Twice 
Neokoros  (Fig.  22). 


Fio.  23. — The  Three  Eparchiae,  Cilicia,  Lycaonia,  Isauria,  crowning  the 
Goddess  of  Tarsus.  Coin  struck  under  the  Emperor  Gordian,  235-238 
A.D.    Tarsus  bears  the  names  of  Hadrian  and  Severus. 

On  the  coin  shown  in  Fig.  23  the  three  Eparchies,  Cilicia, 
Isauria,  Lycaonia,  approach  the  enthroned  genius  of  Tarsus 
to  do  homage.  The  city  is  represented  seated  on  the  rocks, 
not  on  a  chair,  as  in  the  older  coins  (Fig.  20  and  p.  187). 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  a  statue  of  the  City  goddess 
adorned  some  public  place  in  Tarsus. 

The  nature  of  the  Commune  as  the  organised  provincial 
cult  of  the  Emperors,  so  to  say  the  "  State  Church  "  of  the 
Province,  was  shown  on  the  golden  crown  which  the  pro- 


XXIII.    Tarsus  under  the  Empire  239 


vincial  high  priest  wore.  It  was  adorned  with  busts  of  the 
Emperors,  which  stood  up  from  the  golden  circlet  round  the 
head  of  the  wearer.  On  some  coins  of  Tarsus,  one  of  which  is 
given  in  Fig.  24,  this  crown  is  shown.  The  artist  was  unable 
to  represent  properly  the  form  of  the  crown,  or  the  position 
of  the  busts  above  the  circlet :  one  must  understand  that 
the  Imperial  heads  rose  straight  from  the  circlet  and  fitted 
close  round  the  high  priest's  head.  There  were  certainly  more 
Imperial  heads  than  six  on  the  crown.     The  deified  Emperors 


^^^.jpCtOCUaX., 


Fio.  24. — The  Crown  of  the  Chief  Priest  of  Cilicia  in  the  Imperial  Religion ; 
a  circlet  of  gold  surmounted  by  busts  of  the  Emperors.  Coin  struck 
under  the  Emperor  Gordian,  235-238  a.d. 

of  the  past,  and  the  reigning  Emperor  or  Emperors,  should 
all  have  a  place  ;  but  on  coins  exactness  in  such  details  is  not 
to  be  expected. ^^  The  figure  of  Victory  holding  a  garland, 
also,  is  an  addition  made  by  the  coin  engraver,  and  does  not 
belong  to  the  real  crown. 

Such  was  the  crown  worn  by  the  high  priest  and  high 
priestess  of  every  Province  throughout  the  Empire.  Such 
was  the  crown  worn  by  the  Galatarch,  the  high  priest  of 
Galatia,  when  he  met  St.  Thekla  in  the  street  of  Pisidian 
Antioch  and  rudely  accosted  her.^^     Here  on  a  coin  of  Tarsus 


240  II.    Tarsus 

it  denotes  the  office  of  Kilikarch  or  hi^jh  priest  of  Cilicia,  and 
the  word  Eparchikon,  in  the  genitive,  within  the  crown,  is  to 
be  construed  with  the  word  Kilikarchia,  which  is  implied  by 
the  crown.  It  means  that  in  compliment  to  Tarsus  the  office 
had  been  held  by  Governors  of  the  Province.  The  same 
compliment  is  mentioned  in  the  inscription  quoted  in  note 
79,  where  it  is  recorded  that  Tarsus  alone  of  all  the  cities  of 
the  Province  had  been  honoured  by  having  Governors  filling 
the  offices  of  Demiourgos  and  Kilikarch.  It  must  be  under- 
stood that  the  various  cities  had  in  succession  to  supply  a 
person  or  a  married  pair  to  fill  the  Kilikarchate  ;  besides  being 
a  great  honour,  this  was  a  great  expense  to  the  holder,  and 
few  could  affi)rd  to  take  the  office.  More  than  once,  when 
Tarsus  had  to  supply  a  Kilikarch,  provincial  Governors  had 
paid  the  city  the  compliment  of  accepting  the  nomination. 

The  rivalry  between  Anazarbus  and  Tarsus  belongs  to  the 
third  century.  It  had  its  origin  in  the  growing  divergence 
of  character  and  interests  between  the  Western  sea  plain  with 
its  three  great  cities  and  rivers  and  the  upper  or  eastern  plain 
on  the  Pyramus :  the  divergence  grew  more  marked  until  at 
last  it  compelled  Imperial  recognition,  and  brought  about 
the  division  of  Cilicia  Prima  with  its  capital  Tarsus  from 
Cilicia  Secunda  with  its  capital  Anazarbus  about  395-9  A.D.^^ 
Anazarbus  on  its  coins  arrogated  many  titles,  which  Tarsus 
also  used,  e.g.,  "  Metropolis  of  the  Nation,"  i.e.,  the  Province 
Cilicia,  where  the  word  Nation  is  the  translation  of  the  Latin 
Provincia :  ^*  it  called  itself  "  First,  Loveliest,  Greatest " :  it 
claimed  to  be  a  meeting-place  of  the  "  Free  Council  of  the 
Commune  of  the  Province".  But  it  never  claimed  to  be 
"  Metropolis  of  the  Three  Eparchiae  "  ;  that  title  was  reserved 
for  Tarsus  alone ;  and  this  abstinence  m.ust  be  regarded  as  a 
proof  that  to  Anazarbus  had  been  formally  granted  the  title 


XXIII.    Tarsus  under  the  Empire 


241 


of  "Metropolis  of  the  Province  Cilicia,"  with  the  right  to  be 
a  meeting-place  of  the  Provincial  Commune,  but  not  the 
higher  title,  which  was  reserved  for  Tarsus.  It  was  a  great 
occasion  for  Anazarbus  when  Elagabalus  honoured  it  by  ac- 
cepting the  office  of  Demiourgos,  as  the  chief  magistrate  was 
called.  It  boasted  of  this  unique  title  about  218-220;  and 
Tarsus  could  record  no  similar  honour  on  its  coins  for  some 
years,  until  Alexander  Severus  accepted  the  magistracy  of 
the  city.^^ 

The  loyalty  of  Tarsus  to  the  Emperors  was  obtruded  on 


MMm 
Wmwn 


t 


Fig.  25. — Athena  and  Nemesis  surrounding  the  Fortune  of  Tarsus,  "  First, 
Loveliest,  Greatest ".     Coin  struck  under  the  Emperor  Gordian  III. 

the  notice  of  the  world  by  the  titles  which  it  assumed  with 
the  permission  of  the  Imperial  government.  It  was  Hadriane 
under  Hadrian,  Kommodiane  under  Commodus,  Severiane 
under  Severus,  Antoniniane  under  Caracalla,^*'  Makriniane 
under  Macrinus,  Alexandriane  under  Severus  Alexander. 
Some  of  these  titles  were  long  retained,  especially  Hadriane  ; 
but  most  of  them  were  dropped  at  the  accession  of  a  new 
Emperor. 

Fig.  25  is  an  example  of  the  quaint  groups  of  allegorical 
figures   which   were  fashionable  in    later  art.       The  Good 


242 


1 1.    Tarsus 


Fortune  of  Tarsus  stands  between  Athena  and  Nemesis. 
Nemesis  has  a  cubit-rule  in  one  hand,  and  plucks  at  the 
shoulder  of  her  tunic  with  the  fingers  of  the  other.  At  her 
feet  a  griffin  places  his  right  fore-foot  on  a  wheel  at  the  feet 
of  Fortune,  who  carries  the  horn  of  plenty  and  the  rudder, 
the  symbols  which  are  appropriated  to  her  in  numismatic  art. 
Athena  wears  her  usual  crested  Corinthian  helmet,  and  is 
armed  with  spear  and  shield.  The  purport  of  the  associated 
three  figures  is  evident. 

The  picture  of  a  ship  under  full  sail,  which  appears  on 


Fig.  26. — Ship  carrying  from  Egypt  the  "Corn  of  Tarsus".     Coin  struck 
under  the  Emperor  Caracalla,  211-217  a.d. 

some  coins  of  Tarsus,  "  Antoninian  Severian  Hadrianian,"  in 
the  time  of  Caracalla,  might  be  interpreted  as  alluding  to  its 
possession  of  a  harbour  (for  that  is  the  usual  meaning  of 
this  type  on  coins  of  a  city,  e.g.,  at  Ephesus  in  the  coin 
pictured  on  p.  229  of  the  Letters  to  the  Seven  Churches).  But 
at  Tarsus  it  is  only  by  inadvertence  or  from  want  of  space 
that  the  legend  "Corn  of  Tarsus"  is  omitted  in  some  coins, 
though  it  occurs  on  most  of  them  (Fig.  26).  The  legend 
*'  Corn  of  Tarsus "  with  the  type  of  a  ship  implies  that  the 
com   which   is   meant    was  borne  across  the  sea.     One  of 


XXIII.    Tarsus  under  the  Empire  243 

the  interesting  economic  facts  in  the  administration  of  the 
world-wide  Empire  was  that  scarcity  in  one  Province  was 
compensated  by  bringing  into  it  the  harvest  of  another  Pro- 
vince. Egypt  had  been  in  Hellenistic  times  the  granary  of 
the  Eastern  Mediterranean  ;  but  under  the  Empire  this  source 
was  closed  to  the  Provinces,  because  the  Egyptian  harvest 
was  reserved  for  the  capital,  and  Eg>'pt  was  under  the  absolute 
personal  control  of  the  Emperors.  In  some  rare  cases,  how- 
ever, the  Emperors  as  a  special  favour  gave  a  supply  of  corn 
from  Egypt  to  some  city — probably  on  occasion  of  a  bad 
harvest.  This  favour  was  granted  twice  at  least  to  Tarsus, 
once  under  Caracalla  and  once  under  Alexander  Severus. 
The  situation  is  clearly  explained  by  comparison  of  two  other 
coins.  One  bears  the  same  type  of  the  ship  under  sail ;  but 
the  legend  is  "  The  Gift  of  Alexander  to  Ta(rsus)  Me(tro- 
polis),"  and  the  Emperor  represented  is  Alexander  Severus. 
The  other  is  a  coin  of  Caracalla  with  the  reverse  type  of 
Triptolemus  in  his  car  drawn  by  winged  dragons,  carrying 
over  the  world  the  knowledge  of  husbandry,  and  the  legend 
"Corn  from  Egy(pt)  for  Tarsus". 

In  coins  the  small  space  available  for  lettering  could  con- 
tain only  one  statement ;  and  on  each  of  these  coins  one  fact 
of  a  complex  sipaation  was  singled  out  for  commemoration. 
By  combination  of  the  various  legends  the  whole  situation 
is  comprehended.  The  corn  was  a  gift  by  the  reigning 
Emperor,  who  was  the  lord  of  Egypt  as  his  private  property. 
He  gave  one  or  more  shiploads  to  relieve  the  need  of  his 
dutiful  city  of  Tarsus.  The  ships  were  the  large  transport 
vessels,  which  ordinarily  conveyed  the  corn  from  Alexandria 
to  Puteoli.  In  ordinary  years  the  rich  land  of  Cilicia  doubt- 
less produced  sufficient  corn  for  its  /"^habitants  ;  but  an 
occasional  failure  of  the  harvest  had  to  be  met  by  importing 


244  II'    Tarsus 

corn  from  abroad.  In  Egypt  itself  there  sometimes  occurred 
a  famine,  when  the  Nile  failed  ;  and  the  remote  Pisidian 
town  of  Pogla,  far  from  the  sea,  boasts  in  an  inscription  of 
having  on  one  occasion  sent  corn  to  Alexandria. ^'^  Even 
when  the  harvest  was  short  in  Egypt,  the  corn  for  the  city 
of  Rome  must  be  provided,  and  Alexandria  had  to  import 
from  a  different  Province.  Pogla  was  an  Imperial  estate  at 
that  time,  and  the  Emperor  relieved  the  scarcity  of  the 
Egyptian  city  by  sending  corn  from  his  Pisidian  property 
but  did  not  interrupt  the  regular  Roman  transport  service. 

The  Tarsian  artists  were  not  attentive  to  detail  in  repre- 
senting ships.  In  many  cases  they  picture  the  ship  with  the 
large  sail  swelling  out  towards  the  stern ;  but  in  this  case, 
Fig.  26,  the  artist  represents  the  sail  rightly  impelled  by  the 
wind  towards  the  prow.  He  always  represents  the  ship  as 
moving  under  the  force  of  sails  and  oars  combined  ;  but  the 
large  corn  transports  were  certainly  moved  by  sails  alone, 
oars  would  be  of  no  use  in  ships  of  that  size. 


PART  III. 

ANTIOCH. 


1^ 


^^^rj^ui^Ki^^ 


ANTIOCH. 

The  history  of  Pisidian  Antioch  falls  into  three  periods :  first, 
the  early  Hellenistic  city  from  300  to  25  B.C. ;  secondly,  the 
Roman  Colonia  Caesareia  Antiocheia  during  the  first  three 
centuries  after  the  Province  Galatia  and  the  Colonia  were  in- 
stituted ;  thirdly,  the  re-Hellenised  metropolis  Antioch,  after 
Roman  language  and  custom  died  out  and  the  Oriental  spirit 
(but  Orientalism  modified  by  long  contact  with  Hellenic  and 
Roman  customs)  revived,  probably  somewhere  about  or  soon 
after  A.D.  212.  Some  would  add  an  earlier  period  and  the 
history  of  a  pre- Hellenic  and  Phrygian  town  ;  but  this  de- 
pends on  a  doubtful  interpretation  of  Strabo's  description  of 
Antioch,  which  we  cannot  accept.  There  was  a  Phrygian 
population  around,  and  an  important  hieron  of  the  Phrygian 
religion  in  the  neighbourhood  ;  but  there  is  no  reason  to 
think  that  a  city  existed  on  the  site  before  the  Seleucid 
foundation  about  300-280  B.C. 

In  Antioch  we  shall  find  elements  of  population  similar 
to  those  which  we  have  been  observing  in  Tarsus,  chiefly 
Anatolian,  Greek  and  Jewish  ;  but,  owing  to  the  difference 
in  the  proportion  of  the  elements  and  in  the  general  circum- 
stances, there  is  a  marked  difference  in  the  character  and 
spirit  of  the  two  cities. 

§  I.    The  City  and  its  Foundation. 

The  situation  of  Antioch  is  very  fine,  but  the  locality  is 
now  deserted,  forlorn  and   devoid  of  ruins  that  possess  any 

(247) 


248  III.   Antioch 


interest  or  beauty.  The  city  occupied  a  low  oblong  plateau, 
varying  from  50  to  200  feet  above  the  plain  that  lies  in  front. 
It  is  lowest  on  the  west  side,  where  it  faces  the  plain, 
and  highest  on  the  east,  where  it  rises  very  sharp  and 
steep  from  the  bank  of  the  river  Anthios.  The  surface 
of  the  plateau  has  been  so  much  transformed  by  the 
needs  and  works  of  life  in  a  great  city,  the  cutting  down  of 
hills,  the  doing  away  with  slopes  that  were  too  steep,  the 
filling  up  of  hollows,  the  scarping  of  the  outer  edge  to 
strengthen  the  defences — which  always  take  place  on  a  site 
long  inhabited  by  a  civilised  and  ingenious  population,  partly 
from  plans  of  city  improvement,  partly  from  the  action  of 
nature — that  in  wandering  over  the  site  of  Antioch  in  1905 
the  writer  was  unable  to  form  any  conception  of  its  original 
form  before  the  transforming  hand  of  man  was  applied  to  it. 
It  lies  about  3,500  to  3,800  feet  above  the  sea  level. 

In  shape  the  plateau  of  the  city  approximates  to  a  rect- 
angle. On  the  east  (one  of  the  long  sides)  it  is  bounded  by 
the  deep,  narrow,  slightly  curving  glen  of  the  river  Anthios, 
which  has  chosen  to  cut  its  way  from  N.N.E.  to  S.S.W. 
between  this  outlying  plateau  and  the  higher  hills  that  rise 
sharp  from  its  opposite  bank.  The  long  glen  of  the  Anthios 
is  very  picturesque,  and  in  time  of  flood  must  present  an 
mpressive  spectacle,  when  the  waters  rise  high  and  fill  the 
bottom  of  the  narrow  glen,  far  down  below  the  edge  of 
the  plateau.  The  plateau  must  be  nearly  two  miles  in  cir- 
cumference, and  as  it  presents  a  fairly  steep  outer  face,  even 
where  it  is  lowest,  it  must  have  been  an  imposing  fortress 
when  high  strong  walls  crowned  the  outer  face  on  all  sides. 
Coins  of  Antioch  give  a  picture  of  the  river-god  ANTHIOS 
(p.  316)  in  the  form  consecrated  by  Greek  art  to  the  repre- 
sentation of  the  god  of  a  river.     He  reclines  resting  his  left 


I.    The  City  and  its  Foundation  249 

arm  on  an  urn  turned  sideways,  out  of  which  water  pours. 
Behind  him  grows  a  reed.  On  this  coin,  and  on  many 
others,  the  river-god's  body  is  more  erect  than  in  statues  of 
the  same  type ;  and  this  change  sacrifices  in  some  degree 
the  gentle  slope  of  the  figure  from  the  raised  head  down- 
wards to  the  feet,  an  artistic  expression  of  the  gentle  down- 
ward flow  of  the  stream.  But  the  change  accommodates 
itself  better  to  the  shape  of  the  coin  :  a  figure  which  is  too 
much  elongated  does  not  fill  the  field  of  a  coin  so  well  as 
one  that  is  more  bent. 

The  strength  of  the  fortress  was  needed  to  withstand 
attack  from  the  Pisidian  mountaineers,  an  unruly  and 
dangerous  race.  Antioch  was  calculated  to  present  an 
almost  impregnable  front  to  such  raids  and  sudden  attacks 
as  enemies  of  that  type  were  likely  to  make.  The  ordinary 
water  supply  was  by  an  aqueduct  which  conducts  the  water 
from  a  distance  of  several  miles  away  in  the  Sultan-Dagh, 
partly  by  an  underground  conduit,  but  for  the  last  mile 
borne  on  arches  above  ground.^  It  would,  of  course,  be  easy 
in  case  of  war  for  besiegers  to  cut  the  aqueduct,  and  divert 
the  flow;  but  this  would  not  cause  more  than  great  incon- 
venience to  the  besieged  city.  The  river  Anthios  flows  for 
a  long  distance  close  under  the  city  wall,  and  it  would  hardly 
be  possible  for  besiegers  to  prevent  the  garrison  from  ob- 
taining water  out  of  the  river  in  sufficient  quantity  for  the 
necessities  of  life. 

The  photographs  reproduced  on  Plates  VI.-X.  give  some 
idea  how  desolate  the  site  of  Antioch  now  is.  Plate  X., 
taken  from  the  north,  shows  the  entrance  to  the  gorge  of  the 
Anthios,  looking  over  the  fertile  and  level  ground  towards 
the  northern  edge  of  the  city-plateau  (which  rises  towards  the 
river),  the  cleft  through  which  the  Anthios  finds  its  way,  and 


^ 


250  III.   Antioch  ; 

the  higher  hills  on  its  left  bank.  In  Plate  VI.  the  featureless 
character  of  the  site  is  painfully  evident.  Plate  VIII.  shows 
the  scanty  remains  of  the  only  Hellenic  building  of  any  con- 
sequence that  we  saw  on  the  plateau.  It  is  on  the  western 
side  of  the  site,  towards  the  north  end  ;  and  the  view,  which 
is  taken  looking  to  the  south-east,  shows  how  high  the  plateau 
rises  on  the  eastern  side  towards  the  river.  Plate  VIII. 
reproduces  a  photograph  of  the  best  preserved  part  of  the 
aqueduct,  a  work  of  the  best  period. 

In  Plate  IX.  is  shown  the  unsightly  ruin,  which  Hamil- 
ton 2  thought  might  be  the  principal  temple  of  Antioch,  the 
shrine  of  the  God  Men.  Near  the  highest  part  of  the  city, 
which  is  on  the  north-east  part  of  the  plateau,  a  semicircular 
hollow  has  been  cut  in  the  rocky  side  of  the  hill  in  such  a 
way  that  the  rock  walls  of  the  semicircle  rise  quite  perpendi- 
cularly at  the  back,  to  the  height  of  nearly  30  feet  in  parts, 
while  the  front  is  open,  except  that  a  large  mass  of  rock  20 
feet  square,  with  a  square  chamber  cut  in  it,  has  been  left  in 
the  centre.  There  is  a  row  of  holes,  rather  more  than  a  foot 
square,  cut  all  round  the  rock  walls,  and  it  seems  evident  that 
these  holes  were  intended  to  receive  beams.  These  beams 
reaching  inwards  towards  the  central  square  must  have  formed 
a  level  platform.  It  appeared  to  me  in  1905  that  some  sort 
of  an  Odeon  or  small  Theatre  must  have  been  constructed  in 
this  hollow,  though  I  could  not  understand  why  a  floor  stand- 
ing nearly  8  feet  clear  of  the  ground  was  wanted.  Hamilton 
saw  also  the  remains  of  a  portico  in  front,  "with  broken 
columns,  cornices  and  other  fragments,"  and  regards  the 
whole  place  as  "  the  adytum  of  a  temple ".  But  a  portico 
would  have  been  needed  in  front  of  a  Theatre  or  Odeon. 
Most  of  these  remains  have  since  Hamilton's  time  been  carried 
away  for  building  purposes ;  and  the  same  fate  has  happened 


,",*I;V-jL(;*^SSW 


I.    The  City  and  its  Foundation  251 

to  the  remains  which  he  saw  in  the  hollow,  '•  masses  of  highly 
finished  marble  cornices,  with  several  broken  fluted  columns, 
2  feet  8  inches  in  diameter  ". 

The  town  has  been  much  enlarged  during  the  last  few 
years,  and  a  good  waggon-road  has  been  built  to  connect  it 
with  the  Anatolian  Railway  at  Ak-Sheher  (Philomelion), 
while  the  road  to  the  Ottoman  Railway  terminus  at  Dineir 
(Apameia)  was  also  much  improved.  These  useful  works 
were  executed,  not  by  the  government,  but  in  great  part 
by  the  railway  companies,  competing  for  the  trade  of  the 
district. 

The  modern  town  of  Yalo watch  is  also  situated  on  the 
Anthios,  a  little  lower  down  and  on  both  sides  of  the  stream. 
It  is  a  widely  scattered  town,  divided  into  twelve  separate 
quarters  (called  Alahale  in  Turkish).  Professor  Sterrett 
suggests  very  ingeniously  ^  that  these  correspond  to  twelve 
divisions  or  vici  in  the  Roman  city ;  and  this  may  be 
regarded  as  highly  probable  in  view  of  the  permanence 
of  ancient  religious  facts,  for  the  political  division  in  ancient 
times  had  always  a  religious  foundation.  This  modern  town 
extends  nearly  up  to  the  edge  of  the  ancient  site,  but  from 
the  middle  of  the  modern  town  to  the  centre  of  the  ancient 
site  the  distance  must  be  quite  a  mile  and  a  half. 

Beyond  doubt  the  ancient  population  of  Antioch  lived 
a  good  deal  in  the  open  country.  The  land  is  pleasant,  part 
of  it  is  rich  and  fertile,  part  contains  high-lying  pastures, 
and  the  territory  stretches  from  the  lofty  range  of  Sultan- 
Dagh  on  the  north-east  away  down  in  the  direction  of  the 
great  double  lake  called  Limnai,  about  fifteen  miles  or  more 
*o  the  south-west.  It  is,  however,  doubtful  whether  An- 
Sochian  territory  reached  so  far  as  the  Limnai.  The  lake 
<hore  seems  to  have  been  occupied  w  ith  villages,  scattered 


252  III.   Antioch 


over  the  great  Imperial  estates  which  will  be  described 
in  a  later  section.  Those  estates  had  originally  been  the 
property  of  the  god,  and  Antiochian  territory  had  been  part 
of  the  estates,  until  the  first  Seleucid  king  gave  part  of 
the  god's  land  to  the  garrison  city  which  he  founded  on  this 
magnificent  site.  It  is,  however,  possible  that  the  city  terri- 
toiy  touched  the  Limnai  at  some  point ;  but  this  depends 
on  the  interpretation  of  an  uncertain  symbol  on  a  coin  (Fig. 
38),  described  in  §  IX. 

Nothing  is  recorded  about  the  date  and  circumstances 
of  the  foundation ;  but  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the 
city  owed  its  origin  to'the  first  of  the  Seleucid  kings,  Seleucus 
Nikator,  who  named  it  after  his  father  Antiochus,  the  deified 
head  of  the  royal  family. 

Ah  inscription*  shows  that  the  worship  of  Seleucus 
Nikator  was  established  in  the  valley  of  Apollonia  (which 
opens  to  the  west  from  the  Limnai) ;  and,  as  this  cult  lasted 
into  the  Roman  period,  it  must  have  been  founded  on  a 
considerable  scale  with  an  insured  revenue.  This  establish- 
ment proves  that  Seleucus  took  an  active  interest  in  the 
important  route  which  runs  from  Apameia  through  the 
valley  of  Apollonia  by  Antioch  to  Syria.  On  this  road  the 
critical  point  is  Antioch,  where  the  path  turns  round  the 
Limnai,  and  a  sovereign  who  was  strengthening  his  hold  on 
the  road  could  not  miss  this  point,  unless  he  chose  some 
other  place  in  the  neighbourhood.  The  water  supply 
determined  the  exact  site  chosen  ;  other  defensive  points 
could  easily  be  found,  but  they  were  all  disqualified  by  their 
weakness  in  respect  of  water  during  a  siege. 

The  foundations  made  by  the  first  Seleucus  were  intended 
to  be  a  means  of  establishing  and  glorifying  the  whole 
family  and  not  merely  his  single  self.     They  were  certainly 


I.    The  City  and  its  Foundation  253 


laid  out  on  a  comprehensive  plan  to  bind  together  the 
whole  Empire,  and  they  were  to  be  dynastic,  not  personal 
monuments.  Hence  the  later  Seleucid  rule,  that  the  city 
bore  the  name  of  the  king  who  founded  it  ^  or  of  his  royal 
consort,  does  not  apply  to  the  cities  of  Seleucus  Nikator. 
Some  he  called  after  himself,  but  the  most  important  bore 
the  name  of  his  father  Antiochus  as  the  head  and  guardian 
genius  of  the  family ;  one  at  least  on  this  same  road  took  its 
title  from  Apollo^  as  the  patron  god  of  the  dynasty  (the 
successive  kings  being  considered  as  manifestations  of  Apollo 
in  human  form  on  the  earth),  others  of  his  mother  Laodice 
and  his  wife  Apama.  The  inclusion  of  the  latter  was  signi- 
ficant, for  it  was  she,  an  Asiatic,  who  conveyed  the  right  of 
succession  in  Asia  to  her  husband  J 

Antioch  was  thus  surrounded  by  a  sea  of  purely  Phrygian 
population  and  custom.  The  situation  was,  of  course, 
similar  in  all  Seleucid  garrison  cities  :  they  were  founded 
to  be  strongholds  of  the  royal  power,  of  a  more  Greek  type, 
though  far  from  purely  Greek,  amid  Asiatic  peoples.  But 
it  remained  characteristic  of  the  Pisidian  Antioch  that  it 
continued  to  be  the  one  centre  of  the  Seleucid  form  of 
civilisation  for  a  very  large  territory,  as  well  as  a  bulwark 
against  the  whole  strength  of  the  Pisidian  mountain  tribes, 
while  the  land  around  continued  to  be  mainly  Anatolian  and 
Phrygian  in  manners  and  religion,  hardly  affected  even  in 
the  most  superficial  way  by  Hellenic  influence  (p.  294  ff.). 
This  situation,  by  isolating  the  Seleucid  colonists  in  Antioch 
so  thoroughly,  must  have  made  them  even  more  vividly 
conscious  than  the  colonists  in  many  Seleucid  garrison- 
cities  were  of  their  dependence  on  the  support  of  the  kings 
and  of  the  Seleucid  capital  Antioch  in  Syria,  more  opposed 
to   their    ever-present   enemy   the   Phrygian   and    Pisidian 


254  in.   Antiock 


barbarian,  and  more  devoted  supporters  of  the  Graeco- 
Asiatic  type  of  civilisation  which  they  represented.  The 
evidence,  scanty  as  it  is,  points  in  this  direction. 

We  have  spoken  of  Pisidian  Antioch  as  surrounded  by 
Phrygians  and  bordering  on  the  Pisidian  land.  Such  are 
the  topographical  facts,  and  such  are  the  accounts  given  by 
the  ancients,  Strabo,  Ptolemy,  etc.  In  an  inscription  of 
the  city  it  is  called  "  Mygdonian,"  from  the  old  Phrygian 
chief  or  king  Mygdon. 

Thee,  Dionysios,  here  (in  marble),  the  city  Mygdonian  Antioch  has 
[adorned  with]  the  garland  symbolic  of  justice  and  peace.* 

The  ornament  of  a  garland,  symbolical  of  the  peace  which 
Dionysios,  a  soldier  acting  as  chief  of  police  for  the  Region 
round  Antioch,  had  produced  by  his  good  service,  was  placed 
on  the  basis  which  supported  the  statue  of  Aurelius  Diony- 
sios, Regionary  Centurion,  The  text  belongs  to  the  third 
century,  and  is  in  Greek,  though  dedicated  to  an  ofilicer  of 
the  Roman  service.  By  that  time  Roman  Antioch  had 
reverted  to  the  former  condition  of  a  Hellenic  city,  and 
even  the  official  documents  had  come  to  be  expressed  in 
Greek,  whereas  during  the  first  and  second  centuries  Latin 
was  (as  we  shall  see  below)  the  language  not  only  of  official 
documents  but  also  to  a  large  extent  of  private  inscriptions. 

In  another  inscription  the  city  is  said  to  be  in  Phrygia. 
Not  until  the  Province  Pisidia  was  formed  about  A.D.  295 
was  Pisidian  Antioch  in  any  strict  sense  a  city  of  Pisidia. 
Under  the  Romans  it  was  geographically  a  city  of  Phrygia, 
politically  a  city  of  the  Province  Galatia. 

It  is  our  first  task  to  determine  to  what  race  belonged 
these  Seleucid  colonists  of  Antioch.  It  was  they  who  de- 
termined the  character  of  the  city. 


II.    The  Jews  in  Pisidian  Antioch  255 


§  II.    The  Jews  in  Pisidian  Antioch. 

In  the  other  Pauline  cities  the  presence  of  Jewish  in- 
habitants is  either  proved  by  the  authority  of  the  Acts  alone 
(as  at  Derbe  and  Lystra),  or  confirmed  by  clear  evidence 
from  other  sources,  but  their  status  and  rights  in  the  city  are 
either  unknown  or  demonstrated  only  by  indirect  arguments. 
Even  at  Tarsus,  where  the  evidence  is  most  complete,  the 
proof  that  there  was  a  body  of  Jews,  possessing  the  full 
rights  of  citizens  and  burgesses,  results  from  a  series  of  con- 
current arguments,  all  pointing  towards  the  same  conclusion ; 
but  no  record  of  any  family  of  Jewish  citizens  remains 
except  the  family  of  Paul  himself.  The  deficiency  in  this 
last  respect  may  seem  serious  only  to  those  who  are  on  the 
outlook  for  opportunity  to  throw  discredit  on  the  trustworthi- 
ness of  Acts ;  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  epigraphy  rarely 
records  such  matters,  and  moreover  hardly  any  Tarsian  in- 
scriptions have  been  preserved.  In  Iconium,  Lystra  and 
Derbe  it  remains  uncertain  whether  the  Jewish  population 
had  the  status  of  resident  aliens  or  of  citizens  ;  the  former 
being  more  probable  in  Lystra,  the  latter  in  Iconium,  while 
Derbe  is  wrapped  in  complete  obscurity  through  absolute 
lack  of  evidence. 

In  the  case  of  Antioch  alone  complete  evidence  has  sur- 
vived, and  that  in  a  curiously  accidental  way.  The  fact  of 
citizenship  is  not  often  formally  recorded  in  the  epitaphs 
of  any  city,  and,  when  it  is  recorded,  there  is  usually  some 
special  reason ;  moreover  Jews  can  rarely  be  traced  in 
the  epigraphy  ot  such  cities,  because  the  men  usually 
adopted  Greek  or  Roman  names,  and  thus  have  become 
undistinguishable.  The  inscriptions  of  Antioch  are  wholly 
taken  up  with  matters  of  other  kinds,  and  in  none  of  them 


256  III.   Antioch 


can  any  Jew  be  identified  with  certainty;  but  an  epitaph 
of  Apollonia  reveals  a  Jewess  of  Antioch  by  her  name 
Debbora.  It  belongs  to  the  late  second  or  the  third  century 
after  Christ. 

An  Antiochian  [by  race],  sprung  from  ancestors  who  held  many  offices  of 
state  in  the  fatherland,  by  name  Debbora,  given  in  marriage  to  a  famous  man 
Pamphylus,  [I  am  buried  here,]  receiving  this  monument  as  a  return  of  grati- 
tude from  him  for  my  virgin  marriage.^ 

The  evidence  given  in  this  brief  inscription  is  singularly 
complete.  Debbora  was  an  Antiochian  citizen  by  race,  but 
was  married  to  Pamphylus  of  Apollonia. 

That  Debbora  was  a  Jewess  seemed  placed  beyond  reach 
of  doubt  by  her  name.  The  spelling  is  that  of  the  Septua- 
gint,  whereas  the  spelling  Deborah  in  the  English  Version 
is  taken  from  the  Hebrew  text. 

Debbora,  an  Antiochian  citizen  by  descent,  did  not  reside 
in  Antioch,  and  the  formula  is  therefore  used  which  indicates 
the  real  citizenship  of  a  person  who  resided  in  an  alien  city.^" 
In  her  case  the  situation  may  possibly  have  been  complicated 
by  an  additional  fact ;  Pamphylus,  her  husband,  may  have 
been  a  citizen  of  Apollonia  ;  and  if  that  were  so,  the  question 
of  the  right  of  intermarriage  between  citizens  of  the  two 
cities  would  come  up.  This  is  a  most  difficult  subject, 
and  information  fails  us.  If  there  were  such  right  of  inter- 
marriage, Debbora  would  take  the  citizenship  of  her  husband, 
and  cease  to  be  an  Antiochian.  But  it  is  quite  uncertain 
whether  Pamphylus  (whom  we  may  suppose  to  have  been  a 
Jew,^^  probably)  was  a  citizen  of  Apollonia :  he  may  have 
been  only  a  resident  alien.  It  is  also  uncertain  how  far  Roman 
custom  or  law  interfered  to  permit  intermarriage  between 
citizens  of  different  Eastern  provincial  cities  ;  but  after  212 
A.D.,  when  all  citizens  of  provincial  cities  became  Roman 


II.    The  Jews  in  Pisidian  Antioch  257 

citizens,  intermarriage  certainly  must  have  been  legal.  The 
epitaph  of  Debbora,  however,  to  judge  from  the  form  of  the 
letters,  cannot  be  later  than  212. 

From  whatever  cause  it  resulted,  the  fact  seems  clear  that 
Debbora  did  not  become  a  citizen  of  Apollonia,  but  remained 
a  resident  alien,  "  Antiochian  by  race  "}'■ 

The  most  significant  words  in  the  epitaph  are  the  two 
which  describe  Debbora's  ancestors  as  "having  held  many 
honours  of  the  fatherland  "  {iroXvTeL^ovi  Trar/)?;?).  The  term 
"  honours  "  (ri/xai,  honores)  was  regularly  applied  to  the  higher 
magistracies  in  self-governing  cities.  The  word  which  we 
have  rendered  "ancestors"  (yoveU)  is  used  ordinarily  in 
prose  epitaphs  in  the  sense  of  "parents";  but  here  in  the 
language  of  verse  it  designates  the  male  ancestors,  who 
entered  on  the  career  of  office  {cursus  Jionoiuvi),  and  it  looks 
back  on  a  line  of  such  ancestors  for  generations.  The  epi- 
taph of  Debbora  may  belong  to  the  first  or  second  centuiy 
after  Christ,  more  probably  the  first. 

The  inscription  just  mentioned  is  the  only  certain  indica- 
tion of  a  Jewish  colony  in  Antioch ;  and  it  is  fortunate  that 
its  evidence  is  so  complete  and  far-reaching.  It  shows  that 
for  generations  Jews  of  one  family  had  been  citizens  of 
Antioch  and  had  attained  high  offices.  Elsewhere  the  proof 
had  been  pointed  out  that  the  existence  of  one  single  and 
solitary  Jewish  citizen  in  a  Greek  city  was  impossible  ^^ : 
there  must  be  a  separate  class  or  "  Tribe"  of  Jewish  citizens 
in  order  to  make  it  possible  for  any  Jew  to  be  a  citizen. 
Such  a  "  Tribe,"  bearing  some  Greek  title,  formed  the  means 
through  which  Jews  could  be  members  of  this  Hellenic  city 
(for  the  early  Antioch  was  Hellenic,  a  centre  of  Hellenism 
as  adapted  by  Seleucid  policy  to  Oriental  conditions);  it  was 
by  making  the  Jewish  religion  into  the  religious  bond  of  their 

17 


258  III.   Antioch 


own  "  Tribe  "  that  the  Jews  could  enter  Greek  city  life  and 
hold  offices  of  State.     (See  p.  176.) 

The  Jew  who  was  a  magistrate  in  any  Greek  city  must 
have  been  willing  to  shut  his  eyes  to  a  good  deal,  tacitly  to 
acquiesce  in  a  great  deal  of  idolatrous  ritual  which  was  per- 
formed at  every  meeting  for  political  or  social  purposes 
under  his  presumed  patronage.  He  must  also  have  been 
ready  and  successful  in  the  conduct  of  public  affairs  and  in 
the  art  of  wooing  a  constituency.  In  no  other  way  was  it 
possible  to  win  votes  and  gain  an  election.  When  Paul 
visited  Antioch,  the  original  Jewish  Colony  had  been  for 
three  centuries  and  a  half  exposed  to  the  influence  which 
such  practices  exert  on  the  character  of  men,  and  a  profound 
effect  must  have  been  produced  on  a  race  naturally  receptive 
and  progressive.  It  was  inevitable  that  the  Jews  of  Antioch 
should  become  very  different  in  character  from  the  narrow 
class  of  Palestinian  Jews ;  they  were  Hellenised,  Greek- 
speaking,  able  to  move  freely  and  win  success  in  the  free 
competition  of  a  Hellenic  self-governing  city.  Yet  that 
standing  miracle  always  remains :  they  were  still  Jews  in 
feeling  and  religion,  citizens  of  the  Hellenic  city  of  Pisidian 
Antioch,  yet  men  of  Judaea,  as  the  centuries  passed.  The 
religious  teaching  of  the  home  and  the  synagogue  held  them 
firmly  in  the  national  character. 

It  may  seem  strange  that  no  memorial  of  the  Jews  at  An- 
tioch should  have  been  found  among  the  considerable  number 
of  Antiochian  inscriptions,  and  that  the  accident  of  a  Jewish 
woman  residing  at  Apollonia  should  furnish  the  only  proof 
that  Jews  were  citizens  at  Antioch.  But  the  same  dearth 
of  information  exists  about  the  Jewish  colonies  in  Phrygia 
and  Lydia:  only  the  rarest  and  scantiest  references  exist  in 
epigraphy  to  those  large  and  important  bodies  of  people. 


III.    The  Greek  Colonists  in  Early  Antioch     259 

Elsewhere  it  has  been  suggested  ^*  that  a  certain  P.  Anicius 
Maximus,  commander  of  the  army  in  Egypt  under  Claudius, 
to  whom  in  his  native  city  of  Antioch  an  inscription  of 
honour  was  raised  by  the  citizens  of  Alexandria,  may  have 
been  a  Jew  ;  and  that  the  influence  of  the  large  body  of 
Jewish  citizens  in  Alexandria  may  have  been  the  originating 
cause  of  this  action  in  the  remote  Phrygian  city.  Anicius 
Maximus  served  as  an  officer  of  the  Second  Legion  Augusta 
in  Britain,  A.D.  44,  and  was  decorated  for  his  conduct  there. 
He  then  was  promoted  to  the  command  in  Egypt ;  and  it 
was  perhaps  about  A.D.  50  or  soon  after  that  the  dedication 
in  his  honour  was  ordered  by  the  great  city  of  Alexandria. 
The  inscription  was  engraved  on  a  basis,  which  may  have 
supported  a  statue.  But  without  further  evidence  this  sug- 
gestion must  remain  a  mere  empty  hypothesis. 

§  III.    The  Greek  Colonists  in  Early  Antioch. 

It  has  been  shown  ^^  that  Jews  and  Greeks  were  the  two 
educated  races,  to  whom  especially  the  Seleucid  kings 
trusted  as  colonists  and  makers  of  a  higher  civilisation  in 
the  Anatolian  garrison  cities.  Strabo  mentions  that  Anti- 
och was  a  colony  from  Magnesia  on  the  Maeander,  but 
gives  no  information  as  to  the  manner  or  date  of  the  foun- 
dation. We  must  understand  that  in  some  circumstances 
otherwise  unknown,  Seleucus  Nikator  brought  a  body  of 
Magnesians  to  people  his  new  city.  Strabo  says  nothing 
about  any  other  class  of  inhabitants  ;  and  this  would  suggest 
that  the  Magnesians  formed  the  bulk  of  the  population,  and 
that  the  city  was  really  a  new  foundation,  not  a  mere  trans- 
formation of  a  previously  existing  city.  Both  these  infer- 
ences are  in  agreement  with  all  the  rest  of  our  vague  and 
scanty  information.     Strabo  would  not   be  likely  to  have 


26o  III.   Antiock 


any  information  about  a  Jewish  element  in  the  city ;  for,  as 
we  have  seen,  that  element  was  concealed  under  Greek 
forms  and  names,  and  the  Greeks  were  never  ready  to  ac- 
knowledge that  Jews  had  any  part  in  founding  a  Hellenic 
city.  Only  when  complaining  to  some  over-lord  against 
their  Jewish  fellow-citizens  as  not  taking  fair  part  in  the 
life  of  the  city/^  do  they  seem  ever  to  have  admitted  that 
Jews  formed  an  element  in  a  Hellenic  city. 

Strabo's  evidence  is  entirely  confirmed  by  the  epitaph 
found  in  Rome  of  an  Antiochian  who  had  travelled  to  the 
great  city  of  the  Empire,  and  probably  settled  there : — 

A  Magnesian  of  Phrygia  (am  I) ;  and  Appe,  devoted  as  a  virgin  to  the 
Scythian  goddess  (Artemis  Tauropolos),  nursed  me  in  the  olive-clad  Anthian 
plain. ^'' 

That  "  Magnesian  of  Phrygia"  should  be  a  poetic  equiva- 
lent of  "  Antiochian "  is  in  exact  agreement  with  Strabo. 
In  both  authorities  all  thought  of  a  native  Phrygian  or  a 
Jewish  element  in  the  population  of  the  city  is  lost. 

§  IV.    The  Phrygians  of  Antioch. 

That  in  the  Seleucid  garrison  cities  generally  there  was 
a  native  element  in  the  population  may  be  taken  as  practi- 
cally certain.  A  city  peopled  purely  by  foreigners  might 
have  been  efficient  as  a  military  stronghold,  but  could  never 
have  been  serviceable  in  the  other  purpose  for  which  those 
colonies  were  intended,  viz.,  in  acting  as  a  civilising  centre 
from  which  the  type  of  manners  and  education  favoured  by 
the  Seleucid  policy  might  spread  over  the  surrounding  land 
and  people.  The  native  element  in  the  cities  acted  as  an  in- 
termediary between  the  foreign  colonists  and  the  surround- 
ing natives ;  the  Phrygian  citizens  shared  in  the  rights  and 
in  the  education  of  the  colonists,  while  blood  and  feeling  and 


IV.    The  Phrygia7is  of  Antioch  261 

language  united  them  at  first  with  the  surrounding  popula- 
tion, until  the  Hellenised  civilisation  proved  too  strong,  and 
they  began  to  feel  themselves  real  Hellenes.  At  Antioch, 
whether  it  be  that  the  proportion  of  colonists  to  natives  was 
unusually  large,  or  that  the  early  date  of  foundation  and 
other  causes  had  resulted  in  thorough  Hellenisation  of  the 
native  element  in  the  city  by  the  colonists,  or  that  certain 
influences  had  kept  the  surrounding  population  from  being 
affected  by  the  Graeco-Asiatic  education  of  the  city,  there 
seems  to  have  been  a  very  distinct  separation  and  contrast 
between  the  urban  and  the  rustic  people.  Probably  all  three 
reasons  contributed  to  produce  this  result.  Here  we  have 
not  the  usual  state  of  relations  which  elsewhere  existed 
between  country  and  Seleucid  city;  there  is  not  such  a 
simple  uniform  progress  as  is  usual  in  Seleucid  States,  where 
the  rustics  were  uneducated  and  ignorant  persons,  who  by 
degrees  acquired  an  interest  and  share  in  the  civilisation 
of  the  city  as  education  gradually  spread  from  the  centre  of 
population.  There  is  apparent,  especially  on  the  north- 
west and  west  of  Antioch,  a  totally  different  kind  of  custom 
and  society,  non-Hellenic  in  character  (p.  293  f.) ;  and  there 
was  a  broad  and  growing  gap  between  the  Hellenic  city 
Antioch  and  the  population  of  the  country  district  around. 

The  evidence,  then,  scanty  as  it  is,  points  to  the  con- 
clusion that  the  Hellenistic  Antioch  was  rather  a  Greek 
colony  than  a  Phrygian  city  Hellenised.  The  Greek  colon- 
ists predominated  ;  and,  although  a  Phrygian  element  in  the 
city  must  be  supposed,  yet  either  it  was  not  so  numerous  as 
to  affect  the  character  of  the  city,  or  it  was  so  thoroughly 
Hellenised  as  to  acquiesce  in  the  Hellenic  spirit. 

Now  we  observe  that  Apollonia,  the  neighbouring  city, 
which  we  take   to  be   a  companion   foundation  made   by 


262  III.   Antioch 


Seleucus  Nikator,  retained  something  of  the  same  character 
throughout  the  Roman  period.  It  was  never  Romanised  by 
Italian  colonists,  as  Antioch  was ;  and  hence  its  inscriptions 
of  the  Roman  time  show  us  the  character  of  the  Hellenistic 
Apollonia,  whereas  the  inscriptions  of  Antioch  in  the  Roman 
time  show  a  Romanised  and  Latin  Antioch.  Apollonia 
regularly  styled  itself  a  "  colonial  "  city,  as  no  other  Seleucid 
foundation  does.  Its  inhabitants  boasted  on  coins  and  in- 
scriptions that  they  were  entirely  strangers  and  colonists: 
"the  Apolloniatai  (who are)  Lycian  and  Thracian  colonists  ".g^ 
We  are  warranted  in  assuming,  on  the  authority  of  Strabo, 
that  the  people  of  Hellenistic  Antioch  had  a  similar  feeling. 

§  V.     Antioch  a  City  of  Galatia. 

That  Pisidian  Antioch  was  a  part  of  the  Roman  Province 
Galatia  in  the  first  centuiy  needs  now  no  proof,  since  Pro- 
fessor E.  Schiirer,  the  warmest  and  most  distinguished 
opponent  of  this  view,  has  withdrawn  his  opposition.  The 
only  doubt  that  remained  was  as  to  the  date  when  this 
connection  ceased.  A  large  part  of  south-western  Galatia 
was  taken  from  it  and  incorporated  in  the  new  Province  of 
Lycia-Pamphylia  in  A.D.  74.  Another  large  slice  of  south- 
eastern Galatia,  including  the  cities  of  Derbe  and  Isaura, 
was  transferred  to  the  new  Province  called  the  Three 
Eparchies  (Cilicia-Lycaonia-Isauria)  somewhere  about  138 
A.D.  After  deducting  these  parts  from  the  southern  half 
of  the  large  first-century  Province,  there  remained  a  narrow 
strip  of  territory  running  along  the  west  and  north  and  east 
coasts  of  the  Limnai,  and  the  north  and  east  and  south 
coasts  of  lake  Karalis  (Bey-Sheher-Giol),  with  regard  to 
which  evidence  was  defective.  On  the  one  hand  this  terri- 
tory was  almost  completely  separated  from  the  main  part 


V.   Antioch  a  City  of  G alalia  263 

of  Galatia  by  a  great  wedge  of  the  Province  Asia  which 
intervened.  Especially  the  extreme  western  part  of  the 
territory,  including  Antioch  and  Apollonia,  a  long  and 
narrow  strip  of  land,  almost  entirely  surrounded  by  the  two 
Provinces  Asia  and  Pamphylia,  seemed  singularly  unsuited 
to  be  a  part  of  the  Province  Galatia.  Moreover  Ptolemy 
mentions  Antioch  as  a  city  of  the  district  Pisidia  in  the 
Province  Pamphylia. 

On  the  other  hand,  Ptolemy  mentions  both  Apollonia 
and  Pisidian  Antioch  as  cities  of  the  Province  Galatia,  and 
this  fuller  statement  outweighs  his  other  mention  of  Anti- 
och in  Pamphylia,  suggesting  that  the  latter  is  erroneous. 
Moreover,  these  cities  must  either  have  been  left  to  Galatia 
or  transferred  to  Pamphylia  or  to  Asia  :  now  they  were  not 
assigned  to  Pamphylia,  for  epigraphic  proof  is  abundant  at 
Antioch  that  the  city  belonged  to  Galatia  long  after  the  en- 
largement and  reori^anisation  of  Pamphylia  in  A.D,  74  ;  and 
there  is  not  the  slightest  reason  to  think  that  Antioch  could 
ever  have  been  given  to  Asia.  Finally,  the  lost  Acta  of  the 
martyrs  Alphius  and  others  seem  to  have  showei  that 
Antioch  was  still  part  of  Galatia  in  the  time  of  Diocletian 
{Acta  Sanctorum,  28  Sept.,  p.  563),  an  1  the  brief  quotation 
from  the  Acta  in  the  Menologium  Sirletianum,  to  the  effect 
that  Antioch  was  part  of  Phrygia  Galatica,  seems  trust- 
worthy.'^ 

As  we  shall  see  in  Part  IV.,  §  IV.,  the  Roman  colonies 
Iconium  and  Lystra  were  retained  in  the  Province  Galatia  in 
order  to  effect  a  continuity  between  the  two  far-distant  parts 
of  the  Province,  which  without  Iconium  would  have  consisted 
of  two  territories  wholly  disjoined  from  one  another. 

On  these  grounds  I  ranked  Antioch  as  a  Galatian  city 
(and  with   it   Apollonia,  which   must   be   classed  with   it) 


264  III.   Ant  lock 


throughout  the  second  and  third  centuries,  in  Historical 
Coimnentaiy  on  Galatians,  pp.  177  f.,  209  f.,  though  quite 
acknowledging  that  a  certain  doubt  might  still  be  felt.  All 
doubt,  however,  was  removed  by  the  discovery  in  1905  of  a 
group  of  milestones  eight  miles  west  of  Apollonia  on  the  great 
road,  Antioch-Apollonia-Apameia,  described  above  ;  one  of 
them,  dated  A.D.  198,  contains  the  name  of  the  provincial 
Governor,  Atticius  Strabo,  who  is  known  to  have  governed 
Galatia  in  that  year  and  to  have  renovated  the  roads  of  that 
Province,  It  is  therefore  certain  that  the  whole  Region  of 
Antioch  belonged  to  Galatia  throughout  the  first  and  second 
centuries,  and  there  seems  no  possibility  that  any  change  in 
organisation  of  the  Province  can  have  occurred  between  198 
and  295.  About  the  latter  year  Diocletian  broke  up  the 
Province  Galatia  ;  he  took  South  Galatia,  including  Iconium, 
enlarged  it  by  adding  parts  of  Asia  and  Pamphylia,  and 
constituted  it  as  the  Province  Pisidia. 

Along  with  Antioch  the  whole  of  the  large  Imperial  estates 
adjoining  the  Limnai  and  Lake  Karalis  must  be  reckoned 
to  Galatia,  so  far  as  such  estates  belonged  to  any  Province. 
They  doubtless  formed  part  of  the  Regio  of  Antioch  already 
alluded  to ;  and  the  soldiers  stationed  at  the  Colonia  were 
charged  with  the  maintenance  of  order  in  the  estates,  if  called 
upon  by  the  Imperial  representatives  who  managed  those 
vast  properties. 

§  VI.    Character  of  the  Original  Hellenic  City. 

Apart  from  the  few  facts  mentioned  in  the  preceding 
sections,  the  history  of  the  Hellenistic  city  Antioch  is 
extremely  obscure.  Strabo  mentions  that  in  189  B.C.,  when 
the  Seleucid  power  over  Asia  Minor  was  destroyed,  Antioch 
was  made  a  free  city  by  the  Romans,     For  1 50  years  it 


VI.   Character  of  the  Original  Hellenic  City     265 

seems  to  have  remained  in  this  condition,  a  self-govern- 
ing sovereign  state,  maintaining  the  Hellenic  system  of  au- 
tonomy and  education  in  the  borderland  between  the 
servile  country  of  Phrygia  and  the  free  but  barbarous 
Pisidian  mountain-tribes.  We  can  only  vaguely  infer  what 
was  the  spirit  of  the  city  in  this  period,  for  not  a  single 
memorial  is  preserved  above  ground,  though  doubtless 
excavation  would  disclose  in  a  deeper  stratum  monuments 
which  belong  to  that  earlier  time. 

The  facts  from  which  we  have  to  judge  are  the  following. 
In  the  first  place,  it  continued  to  feel  itself  a  Hellenic  city. 
It  did  not  sink  back  to  the  level  of  a  mere  Oriental  and 
Phrygian  town.  Centuries  later  we  find  that  its  people 
spoke  of  themselves  as  Magnesians  residing  in  Phrygia  :  "^^ 
the  Magnesian  origin  of  the  Greek  colony  was  still  living  in 
their  minds.  The  same  thought  was  fresh  in  the  memory  of 
the  surrounding  population,  when  Strabo  travelled  across 
Asia  Minor  and  passed  through  Philomelion,  the  city  on 
the  other  side  of  the  lofty  ridge  of  Sultan-Dagh. 

The  geographer  did  not  visit  Antioch  or  see  it  with  his 
own  eyes  :  he  only  heard  about  it  as  situated  on  the  oppo- 
site side  of  the  mountains  from  Philomelion.  His  descrip- 
tion of  the  two  cities  and  of  the  intervening  mountain-ridge 
shows  clearly  that  he  knew  only  the  Philomelian  side,  and 
assimilated  in  imagination  the  Antiochian  side,  which  he 
had  not  seen,  to  the  side  which  he  knew.  On  the  latter 
side  the  landscape  is  a  deep-lying,  perfectly  level  valley 
from  which  rises  sharp  and  steep  the  great  ridge  of  Sultan- 
Dagh.  On  the  Antiochian  side  there  is  neither  a  level 
valley  nor  a  well-defined  mountain  ridge  :  it  is  only  in  the 
more  distant  view  from  the  west  that  the  continuity  and 
grandeur  of  Sultan-Dagh  is  realised  :  the  country  near  the 


266  III.   Antioch 


mountains  is  very  rough  and  undulating,  with  ridges  of  hills 
considerable  in  size,  which  reach  back  to  merge  themselves 
gradually  in  the  superior  mass  of  Sultan-Dagh. 

Strabo's  description,  therefore,  is  founded,  not  on  what 
the  Antiochians  thought  of  themselves,  but  on  what  other 
people  beyond  the  mountains  thought  of  them.  He  de- 
scribes Antioch  as  a  free  Hellenic  city,  and  this  means  a 
great  deal ;  it  implies  free  institutions,  elective  form  of 
self-government,  popular  assemblies,  and  above  all  a  certain 
well-established  system  of  education  for  the  young,  which 
was  continued  throughout  their  later  life  by  their  experience 
as  citizens  and  voters,  producing  in  them  a  general  know- 
ledge of  and  interest  in  political  facts  and  in  questions  of 
domestic  and  foreign  policy,  on  which  they  had  often  to 
vote  in  the  Assembly  or  Ekklesia — and  producing  in  them 
also  a  pride  of  birth  as  Magnesians,  a  pride  of  education  as 
Hellenes,  and  a  contempt  for  the  slavish  Oriental  Phrygians 
or  the  barbarous  Pisidians.  All  this  has  to  be  inferred, 
but  can  be  inferred  with  perfect  confidence.  Excavations 
to  prove  the  facts  by  the  discovery  of  written  documents 
of  the  period  are  much  to  be  desired. 

The  only  epigraphic  evidence  which  bears  on  the  history 
of  the  first  Antioch  is  an  imperfect  inscription  found  at 
Magnesia  on  the  Meander,  the  parent- city  of  Antioch:  this 
document  is  one  of  a  long  series  of  decrees  passed  by  many 
Hellenic  cities  in  recognition  of  the  privileges  of  the  Mag- 
nesian  goddess  Artemis.  In  one  of  the  decrees,  where  the 
name  of  Antioch  occurs  without  any  distinguishing  epithet, 
Kern  (who  has  published  the  whole  series)  understands 
that  the  document  emanated  from  Pisidian  Antioch;  and 
there  can  be  no  question  that  he  has  good  reason  for 
doing  so.^^     These  decrees  were  made  during  the  last  years 


VI.   Character  of  the  Original  Hellenic  City     267 

of  the  third  century  before  Christ  in  response  to  courteous 
messages  conveyed  by  Magnesian  ambassadors  to  the  leading 
Hellenic  cities  of  Asia  and  of  Greece,  and  among  others  to 
Pisidian  Antioch. 

This  decree  in  honour  of  the  Magnesian  Artemis  entirely 
confirms  the  account  which  we  have  given  of  Antioch, 
proving  that  it  was  recognised  as  a  Hellenic  city  by  its 
neighbours,  that  it  remembered  its  relation  to  its  parent- 
city  and  acknowledged  its  obligations  to  Hellenism  gener- 
ally. 

This  event  belongs  to  the  third  century  before  Christ ; 
but  there  is  no  reason  to  think  that  the  Hellenic  spirit  died 
out  in  the  following  century.  Antioch  lay  on  a  great 
commercial  highway.  It  was  in  easy  and  constant  com- 
munication with  many  other  Hellenic  cities,  accessible 
readily  to  ambassadors  from  them  (such  as  had  brought 
the  request  from  Magnesia  regarding  the  worship  of  Ar- 
temis), and  this  intercourse  exercised  a  strong  influence 
in  maintaining  the  spirit  of  Hellenism.  The  whole  course 
of  contemporary  history  shows  that  Hellenism  was  an 
undiminished  power  at  that  time  in  Western  Asia.  The 
whole  burden  of  proof  would  lie  with  one  who  asserted 
that  Hellenism  died  out  in  Antioch  during  the  last  two 
centuries  before  Christ,  for  the  assertion  is  contrary  to  all 
the  probabilities  of  the  case  and  the  analogy  of  other  west- 
Asian  centres  of  Hellenism. 

In  39  B.C.  Antioch  with  Apollonia  and  the  whole  of 
Pisidia  and  Pisidian-Phrygia,  was  given  by  Antony  to 
Amyntas  the  last  king  of  Galatia;  and  thus  this  large 
district  became  part  of  the  Galatian  realm.  While  Antioch 
now  ceased  to  be  a  free  city,  it  is  not  probable  that  any 
serious  change  was  made  in  its  internal   affairs.     It   was 


268  III.   Antioch 

no  longer  a  sovereign  state ;  it  ceased  to  have  a  foreign 
policy;  it  was  controlled  by  the  king,  and  probably  paid 
tribute  to  him.  But  all  analogy  points  to  the  opinion  that 
it  continued  to  administer  its  own  internal  affairs  by  its 
own  elected  magistrates.  In  any  case  the  kingly  period 
was  too  short  to  affect  seriously  the  spirit  of  the  city,  for 
Amyntas  was  soon  killed  in  battle  against  the  Pisidian 
mountaineers ;  and  he  bequeathed  his  whole  property  and 
realm  to  the  Roman  Empire. 

§  VII.    The  Roman  Colony  of  Pisidian  Antioch. 

A  new  period  in  the  history  of  Antioch  began  in  25  B.C., 
when  the  country  passed  into  the  possession  of  Rome  at 
the  death  of  Amyntas.  The  city  was  then  made  a  Roman 
Colony.  The  exact  date  of  the  foundation  is  not  recorded, 
and  absolute  certainty  cannot  be  attained  ;  but  there  can  be 
little  doubt  that  the  statement  which  is  usually  made  by  the 
numismatists  is  correct,  and  that  the  establishment  of  the 
Colony  took  place  as  soon  as  the  Roman  dominion  over  the 
kingdom  of  Amyntas,  which  now  became  the  Province 
Galatia,  was  organised.  The  name  Caesareia  Antiocheia, 
by  which  the  city  was  henceforth  designated,  marks  it  as 
separate  from  the  other  Pisidian  Colonies,  which  were  all 
called  Julia,  most  of  them  Julia  Augusta  ^^ ;  and  if  its 
foundation  belonged  to  a  different  time,  it  must  have  been 
earlier  and  not  later  than  them.  Now  the  other  Pisidian 
Colonies  were  founded  about  J -6  B.C.,  and  probably  are 
connected  with  the  government  of  Quirinius  (Cyrenius), 
who  commanded  the  armies  of  the  Province  Syria  in  the 
war  against  the  Pisidian  mountaineers  at  that  time.^^ 
Antioch,  being  older,  may  therefore  safely  be  connected 
with  the  first  organisation  of  the  new  Province. 


VII.    The  Roman  Colony  of  Pisidian  Antioch     269 

It  was  a  real  elevation  in  rank  and  dignity  that  was  con- 
ferred on  the  Hellenic  city  Antioch,  when  it  was  constituted 
and  refounded  as  a  Roman  Colony,  It  was  thus  placed  in 
the  highest  class  of  provincial  cities ;  it  was  made,  so  to 
say,  a  piece  of  the  Imperial  city,  a  detached  fragment  of 
Rome  itself,  separated  from  Rome  in  space,  but  peopled  by 
Romans,  i.e.  coioni,  who  were  of  equal  standing  and  privileges 
in  the  eye  of  the  law  with  the  citizens  of  Rome — cives  optimo 
iu7'e,  according  to  the  technical  formula. 

The  coioni,  or  citizens  of  the  Co/onia,  new  inhabitants 
introduced  from  the  West,  for  the  most  part  veteran  soldiers 
of  the  legion  Alauda,-*  must  be  clearly  and  broadly  dis- 
tinguished from  the  older  Hellenic  population,  who  now 
ranked  only  as  dwellers,  iticolae,  in  their  own  city,  and  who 
did  not  possess  the  same  rank  and  rights  as  the  coioni. 
The  Antiochian  Hellenes  did  not  forthwith  become  Roman 
citizens  and  coioni ;  the  latter  were  Roman  citizens  in  their 
own  right  before  they  became  coioni.  But  still  even  the  old 
Hellenic  citizens  had  some  share  from  the  first  in  the  in- 
creased dignity  of  the  city.  The)'  were  certainly  on  a  more 
favoured  and  honoured  footing  than  the  citizens  of  ordinary 
Hellenic  cities.  They  were,  probably,  freed  from  direct  taxa- 
tion and  enjoyed  some  other  privileges  ;  but  no  evidence 
remains  on  the  spot,  and  it  is  not  possible  to  do  more  than 
speak  in  general  terms  fiom  the  analogy  of  the  incolae  in 
other  Roman  coloniae.  Their  most  important  privilege,  how- 
ever, lay  in  the  future  :  they  had  a  more  favourable  oppor- 
tunity than  the  citizens  in  ordinary  Hellenic  cities  of  attaining 
the  coveted  honour  of  the  Roman  citizenship.  The  success 
of  the  Roman  government  in  permanently  conciliating  the 
loyalty  of  the  provincial  population  -^  was  founded  on  the 
settled  principle   of  Imperial  administration,  according   to 


270  III.   Antioch 


which  the  peoples  were  regarded  as  being  all  in  a  process  of 
education  and  training  to  fit  them  for  the  honourable  estate 
of  full  Roman  citizenship.  The  ultimate  destiny  of  the 
Empire  was  that  all  freemen  should  attain  this  honourable 
position ;  and  that  destiny  was  achieved,  perhaps  rather 
prematurely,  by  Caracalla  about  A.D.  212;  but,  whether  or 
not  he  hurried  on  the  final  stage  too  rapidly,  this  was  the 
goal  to  which  the  Imperial  policy  had  been  tending  from  the 
beginning.  As  a  first  stage  nations  on  the  outer  fringe  of 
the  Empire  were  commonly  placed  under  the  rule  of  client 
kings,  whose  duty  it  was  not  merely  to  preserve  order,  but 
to  instil  a  habit  and  spirit  of  orderliness  into  their  sub- 
jects and  to  naturalise  among  them  the  first  principles  of 
Roman  systematic  method  in  government.  After  a  certain 
time  of  such  training  the  people  was  reckoned  worthy  of 
being  formed  into  a  Roman  Province. ^^  Such  was  the  his- 
tory of  Palestine  under  Herod,  of  Pontus  under  Polemon, 
of  Galatia  under  Amyntas,  of  Cilicia  Tracheia  under  Antio- 
chus  IV.,  and  of  many  other  countries. 

When  a  new  Province  like  Galatia  was  organised,  its 
different  parts  and  cities  were  variously  treated  according  to 
their  fitness  for  the  duties  of  loyal  service  to  the  Empire. 
The  most  backward  parts  were  left  in  the  old  tribal  con- 
dition, as  was,  for  example,  the  case  with  the  Homonades, 
who  had  killed  Amyntas  and  were  at  a  later  time  subdued 
by  Quirinius:  at  a  much  later  time  such  tribes  generally 
received  the  city  organisation.  The  city  was  the  proper  unit 
in  Roman  administration ;  and  wherever  there  existed  a 
Hellenic  city  in  the  new  Province,  it  was  made  a  city  in  the 
Roman  system  and  a  unit  in  the  Province.  In  such  a  city 
the  most  influential,  wealthy  and  energetic  citizens  were 
gradually  elevated    to  the  Roman  citizenship;  and   these 


VII.    The  Roman  Colony  of  Pisidian  Antiock     271 

formed  a  city  aristocracy,  whose  weight  and  authority  in  the 
city  rested  on  wealth,  privileg^e,  energy  and  ability.  The 
highest  and  most  honoured  class  among  the  Provincial  cities 
consisted  of  the  Coloniae.  These  contained  a  considerable 
body  of  Roman  citizens,  and  their  whole  tone  and  spirit 
was  thereby  affected  and  Romanised.  The  amusements, 
the  public  exhibitions,  the  education,  were  more  Roman  in 
the  Coloniae  than  in  the  sur;ounding  Hellenic  cities:  so 
also  were  the  magistrates,  the  public  language,  the  law  and 
the  institutions  generally.  In  this  Roman  atmosphere  the 
rest  of  the  population,  the  incolae,  lived  and  moved ;  they 
caught  the  Roman  tone,  adopted  Roman  manners,  learned 
the  Latin  tongue,  and  were  promoted  to  the  Roman  citizen- 
ship more  freely  and  quickly  than  were  the  people  of 
Hellenic  cities.  In  most  cases,  probably  in  almost  every 
case,  Roman  citizenship  was  made  universal  among  the  free 
population  (including  the  original  inhabitants  of  the  city)  at 
an  early  date.^^  That  seems  to  have  been  the  case  at  An- 
tioch.  The  inscriptions,  Greek  and  Latin  alike,  show  no 
trace  of  Hellenes,  but  only  of  Romans.  Every  free  inhabi- 
tant of  the  city,  of  whom  epigraphic  record  survives,  bears 
the  full  Roman  name,  which  marks  him  as  a  Roman  citizen.'-'^ 
This  seems  to  constitute  a  complete  proof  that  the  entire  city 
became  Roman  at  a  comparatively  early  date,  though  later 
than  the  Pauline  period. 

Wherever  and  whenever  the  number  of  Roman  citizens 
became  large,  their  position  as  a  local  aristocracy  necessarily 
suffered.  It  was  no  longer  possible  to  maintain  that  standard 
of  wealth  on  which  the  influence  of  an  aristocracy  must  be 
supported.  Under  the  early  Empire,  when  there  were  in 
an  Eastern  city  only  a  few  Roman  citizens,  some  of  Italian 
origin,  others  from  the  leading  families  of  the  old  Hellenic 


272  III.   Antioch 


city,  these  formed  a  true  aristocracy  in  the  city.  But  when 
all  freemen  became  Roman  citizens  in  A.D.  212,  there  was 
no  longer  any  distinction  ;  there  were  no  people  to  whom 
the  Roman  citizens  could  be  superior  except  the  slaves. 
The  lines  of  class  distinction  in  the  third  and  later  centuries 
were  drawn  anew.  It  was  no  longer  an  honour  to  bear  the 
three  names  of  a  Roman,  for  all  had  an  equal  right  to  the 
three  names;  and  the  old  system  of  Roman  personal  names 
gradually  ceased  to  be  attended  to  or  maintained  in  the  East- 
ern Provinces.     A  new  period  and  new  fashions  had  begun. 

To  a  certain  extent  a  similar  change  took  place  in  Pisidian 
Antioch,  when  the  whole  free  population  of  the  city  attained 
the  honour  of  Roman  citizenship ;  and  this  honour  neces- 
sarily ceased  to  be  an  object  for  the  older  population  to  aim 
at.  But  the  lustre  of  Roman  citizenship  did  not  disappear, 
for  though  all  free  Antiochians  were  now  Romans,  yet  the 
surrounding  world  of  Phrygia  and  Pisidia  still  remained  out- 
side the  pale  of  Roman  citizenship,  and  thus  all  the  Antio- 
chian  Romans  could  feel  their  superiority  to  the  mass  of  the 
Provincials ;  they  were  proud  that  Antioch  was  a  Roman 
town,  a  part  of  the  great  governing  Imperial  city. 

When  did  this  change  take  place?  When  were  all  the 
old  population  of  Antioch  raised  to  the  rank  of  Romans  ? 
It  is  not  possible  to  specify  the  date  ;  but  one  cannot  sup- 
pose it  was  much,  if  at  all,  earlier  than  the  second  century. 
The  cities  of  Spain  were  honoured  by  Vespasian  with  mere 
Latin  rank,  a  step  on  the  way  to  Roman  rank,  in  A.D.  74. 
The  full  Roman  honour  was  accorded  to  Antioch  probably 
later,  and  net  earlier.  Hence  we  must  conclude  that  in  the 
time  of  St.  Paul's  visits  to  Antioch,  the  mass  of  his  hearers 
were  still  not  Roman  citizens,  but  they  all  looked  forward 
to  that  rank  as  a  possible  honour  to  be  attained  in  the  future. 


The   Plateau   of  Pisidian   Antioch,   and   the   Glen   of  the    River   Anthios,   looking 

from    the   north-east. 

See   p.   249. 


Looking  across   Konia   to  the  Twin   Peaks   of   St.   Philip  and   St.    Thekla. 

See  pp.  318,  376,  380,  389. 


VII.    The  Roman  Colony  of  Pisidian  Antioch     273 

The  mere  presence  in  their  city  of  a  considerable  Italian 
population  gave  them  higher  privile;jes,  and  was  a  distinc- 
tion to  all  the  inhabitants  of  every  class.  Even  those  who 
were  not  Rom.ins  were  on  the  way  to  become  Romans  in 
course  of  time,  as  a  reward  of  merit  and  loyalty. 

Not  merely  gratitude  for  the  past  and  hope  for  the  future 
made  the  Antiochian  population  strongly  philo-Roman,  but 
also  the  keen  sense  of  daily  advantages  produced  the  same 
result.  As  chief  city  of  the  southern  half  of  the  Province 
Galatia,  Antioch  was  the  governing  centre  of  a  large  country ; 
it  was  frequently  visited  by  the  Roman  governors  of  the 
Province  '^^  with  their  large  train  of  attendants  (which  would 
cause  considerable  influx  of  money  into  the  city  and  thus 
tend  to  enrich  the  merchants  and  shopkeepers)  ;  great  public 
exhibitions  of  games  and  wild  beasts  and  gladiators  were 
held  there,  which  would  attract  large  numbers  of  visitors 
and  sightseers,  all  spending  their  money ;  the  courts  of  jus- 
tice held  by  the  governors  in  the  city  likewise  brought  to 
the  city  many  litigants  and  enriched  the  population.  The 
description  given  by  Dion  Chrysostom  in  his  oration  de- 
livered at  Apameia-Celaenae  of  the  crowds  and  the  wealth 
which  were  brought  to  that  city  owing  to  its  position  as  a 
leading  Roman  centre  of  administration,  may  be  applied  to 
Antioch  in  a  higher  degree.  The  dignity  and  the  wealth  of 
almost  every  person  in  Antioch  depended  mainly  on  its 
rank  as  a  Roman  city  in  the  Province  Galatia ;  and  its  Pro- 
vincial standing  was  the  most  important  factor  in  its  history 
during  the  first  century.  Hence  "  the  Province,"  i.e.  Rome 
as  it  appeared  in  the  land,-'°  must  have  bulked  largely  in  the 
minds  of  the  Antiochian  populace;  and,  if  the  Church  of 
Antioch  claimed  to  represent  its  city,^^  it  felt  itself  to  be  a 

Church  of  Galatia. 

18 


274 


III.  Antioch 


The  tale  of  St.  Thekla,  when  read  in  the  light  of  Dion 
Chrysostom's  oration,  gives  a  pretty  picture  of  the  assem- 
blage which  gathered  in  Antioch  at  a  great  festival  of  the 
Imperial  religion,  presided  over  by  a  high  priest  of  the 
Emperor  {Church  in  the  Roman  Empire,  p.   396). 

The  pride  of  Antioch  in  its  colonial  and  Roman  character 
inspires  many  of  the  representations  on  its  coin.  Most  of 
the  types  usual  and  characteristic  in  Roman  Coloniae  occur, 
e.g.,  the  founder  ploughing  the  furrow  that  marked  its  limits 
when  it  was  founded  (a  specimen  of  which  at  Lystra  is 


Fig.  28. — The  Roman  Standards  at  Antioch. 

shown  in  Fig.  53);  the  she- wolf  with  the  twins  (as  at  the 
Colony  Iconium,  Fig.  45).  The  military  character  of  Antioch 
is  blazoned  as  Roman,  not  Greek,  in  the  standards,  which 
are  a  common  type,  especially  on  the  late  coins  of  Antioch. 
They  are  not  to  be  interpreted  as  the  standards  of  troops 
stationed  at  Antioch ;  they  are  simply  reproductions  of  the 
typical  Roman  flags  seen  especially  on  Imperial  coins ;  the 
coinage  of  the  Colonia  was  modelled  on  that  of  Rome  itself. 
The  most  frequent  group  of  standards  is  the  widespread  one 
of  a  vexillum  (the  flag  of  a  detachment  of  troops  serving 


VII.    The  Ro77zan  Colo7ty  of  Pisidian  Anttoch     275 

apart  from  the  main  body)  between  two  signa  (flags  of  single 
companies  or  maniples  of  a  legion).  Sometimes,  as  in  Fig. 
28,  eagles  perch  over  all  the  three  flags :  these  are  to  be 
understood  in  a  general  sense  as  symbols  of  Roman  war 
and  victory,  not  as  imitated  from  the  standard  appropriate 
to  any  particular  unit  in  the  Roman  army.  There  is  no 
system  to  be  observed  in  the  variations  of  the  standards  on 
coins  of  Coloniae  like  Antioch  :  they  seem  purely  capricious, 
and  only  imply  that  the  artists  were  not  skilled  in  these 
military  details  and  did  not  aim  at  accuracy  and  truth.     It 


Fig.  29. — The  Emperor  Gordian  offering  Sacrifice  beside  the  St!indards. 

is  doubtful  whether  in  Fig.  28  the  coin  artist  intended  mere 
round  bosses,  or  medallions  with  heads  of  Emperors  (as  the 
draftsman  has  taken  them) ;  the  former  is  more  probable 
and  would  be  truer  to  Roman  facts. 

In  Fig.  29  the  Emperor  Gordian  III.  stands  beside  the 
standards,  pouring  a  libation  on  a  burning  altar  (whose  two 
handles  characterise  it  as  portable).  Two  of  the  standards 
are  surmounted  by  upright  crowns,  the  third  by  a  Victory 
carrying  a  crown  in  her  hands  :  the  details  of  these  standards 
are  very  uncertain,  owing  to  the  poor  preservation  and  the 


2';6 


III.  Antiock 


original  rudeness  of  the  coin.  The  Emperor  has  one  end 
of  the  toga  like  a  veil  over  his  head  in  the  archaic  fashion 
of  priestly  service  :  he  is  to  be  understood  as  performing  the 
religious  ceremonial  of  the  army  at  the  holy  place  in  the 
camp  where  the  standards  were  stored  together.  On  his 
dress  compare  Fig.  53. 

In  accordance  with  the  purpose  for  which  the  Colonia  had 
been  founded,  its  coins  frequently  bear  the  type  of  Victory 
in  many  varieties.     Sometimes  the  goddess  advances,  bearing 


Fio.  30. — Two  Victories  fixing  a  shield  on  a  palm  tree :  at  its  foot  two 
captives  (coin  of  the  Emperor  Gordian  III.). 

in  her  hands  a  wreath  and  a  palm  branch.  Sometimes  she 
stands,  carrying  a  trophy :  or  the  patron  god  of  the  city, 
Men,  raises  this  figure  of  Victory  on  his  hand  (Fig.  33). 
Sometimes  (as  in  Fig.  30)  two  Victories  place  a  shield  on  a 
palm  tree,  at  the  foot  of  which  two  captives  are  seated. 
Sometimes  the  goddess  sits  on  a  cuirass,  and  writes  on  a 
shield,  which  she  holds  on  her  knees :  this  type  may  be 
compared  and  contrasted  with  the  coin  of  Derbe  (Fig.  52), 
where  the  goddess  stands  and  writes  on  a  shield. 

The  outward  appearance  of  the  city  was  made  as  Roman 


VIII.   Hellenism  in  Pisidian  Antioch         277 

as  possible.  Instead  of  the  old  classification  into  Tribes, 
the  population  and  the  town  were  divided  into  Vici :  the 
names  of  six  of  these  are  known,  and  they  are  purely  and 
obtrusively  Roman,  Patricms,  Aedilicius,  Tuscus,  Velabrus, 
Cerinalus,  Salutaris — among  them  several  of  the  most 
famous  street-names  of  Rome ;  and  it  is  a  plausible  con- 
jecture of  Professor  Sterrett  that  there  were  twelve  vici^  as 
there  are  twelve  quarters  {inahak)  in  the  modern  town. 
The  magistrates  were  those  usual  in  Roman  Coloniae,  Duoviri 
lure  Dicundo  and  Quinquennales,  Aediles,  Quaestors  and 
Curators.  There  was  a  priesthood  of  Jupiter  Optimus 
Maximus;  also  one  or  more  flamens.  The  senators  were 
called  Decuriones,  the  senate  was  an  Ordo. 

The  tale  of  St.  Thekla  affords  the  proof  that  exhibitions, 
euphemistically  called  vcnationes,  in  which  criminals  were 
exposed  to  wild  beasts,  were  usual ;  such  exhibitions  were 
never  as  popular  in  Greek  as  in  Roman  cities.  The  Ordo 
and  the  Populus  concurred  in  pa)ing  honours  to  distin- 
guished citizens  or  strangers,  instead  of  the  Boule  and 
Demos  of  a  Greek  city.  The  Populus  seems  to  have  ex- 
pressed its  will  more  by  acclamation  in  the  theatre  than 
by  formal  voting  in  public  meetings. 

It  is  in  agreement  with  the  strong  Roman  feeling  and 
custom  which  characterised  Antioch  in  the  first  century  of 
our  era  that  the  population  are  not  called  by  Luke  Hellenes 
or  Greeks,  but  only  the  Plebs  or  the  Gentiles.  The  latter 
is  a  wider  term,  which  included  at  once  Greeks  and  Romans 
and  Phrygians  and  other  native  races. 

§  VIII.    Hellenism  in  Pisidian  Antioch. 
While   the  spirit   and  tone  of  Roman  loyalty  was   thus 
dominant  in  Pisidian  Antioch  during  the  first  century,  there 


278  III.   Antioch 


is  no  reason  to  think  that  Hellenic  civilisation  and  manners 
were  entirely  displaced  by  Roman.  It  is  much  to  be  de- 
sired that  excavation  should  be  made  on  the  site,  in  order 
to  give  some  clear  objective  evidence  on  this  point ;  but 
analogy  and  general  considerations  tend  to  show  that  Greek 
ways  and  Greek  education  must  have  maintained  themselves 
in  the  city,  even  while  the  Roman  spirit  was  most  thoroughly 
dominant.  Rome  was  never  hostile  to  Greek  custom  and 
Greek  law  in  the  East :  it  recognised  that  in  Asia  Greek 
civilisation  was  an  ally,  not  an  enemy,  nor  even  a  competitor. 
The  civilisation  which  Rome  sought  to  spread  over  western 
Asia  was  bilingual.  Accordingly,  all  probability  points  to  the 
opinion  that  Greek  was  the  familiar  language  spoken  at 
Antioch  in  the  home  life,  except  among  the  Italian  immigrant 
or  colonist  families,  and,  even  among  these,  the  knowledge 
of  Greek  gradually  spread  in  course  of  time.  Thus  it  came 
about  that  as  the  Roman  vigour  died  and  the  Oriental  spirit 
revived  during  the  third  century,  Greek  seems  to  have  be- 
come the  practically  universal  language  of  the  Antiochian 
population,  though  some  few  inscriptions  recording  govern- 
ment documents  were  written  in  Latin  as  late  as  the  fourth 
century.  Hence  also  it  is  quite  in  accordance  with  the 
circumstances,  that  Greek  was  the  language  used  in  the 
synagogue. 

To  trace  the  disuse  of  Latin  and  the  recurrence  to  Greek 
as  the  public  and  formal  language  of  the  Colonia  would  be 
a  useful  task,  but  as  yet  this  cannot  be  essayed.  Though 
the  inscriptions  are  numerous,  no  regular  system  of  dating 
them  was  ever  employed  in  Antioch  and  no  era  seems  ever 
to  have  been  used  there.  The  want  of  any  chronological 
system  here  shows  by  contrast  how  useful  even  a  bad 
system   of  dating  by  some  local  era  was  in  many  cities  of 


VIII.   Hellenism  in  Pisidian  Antioch         279 

Asia  Minor ;  still  more,  how  important  a  step  was  made 
when  a  uniform  era  of  the  Province  came  into  general  use 
throughout  a  whole  region,  as,  for  example,  in  the  cities  of 
Asian  Phrygia,  or  when  the  Seleucid  era,  reckoning  from 
312  B.C.,  was  brought  into  widespread  employment  in  the 
Seleucid  Empire  and  lasted  in  some  parts  of  Syria  for  many 
centuries.  This  invention  of  a  useful  general  system  of 
chronology  was  one  of  those  apparently  small  things  which 
lie  in  reality  at  the  basis  of  the  social  fabric  and  help  to 
form  the  foundations  on  which  educated  society  rests.  It 
was  in  the  Graeco-Asiatic  cities  that  this  important  advance 
in  the  methodical  organisation  of  society  was  made.  It 
was  among  them  that  common  employment  of  a  uniform 
era  for  a  large  country  was  first  carried  into  practical  ef- 
fect. The  cities  of  Greece  thought  it  a  point  of  honour  to 
employ  a  purely  municipal  system  of  dating  by  the  name  of 
the  annual  magistrates  of  the  city  where  the  document  was 
executed.  This  Greek  method,  which  naturally  was  unin- 
telligible beyond  the  limits  of  the  single  city,  was  imitated 
in  Rome  ;  and  owing  to  the  wide  Imperial  sway  of  Rome, 
the  dates  by  consuls  became  generally  intelligible  over  the 
Empire,  though  such  a  complicated  system  formed  a  serious 
bar  to  practical  usefulness,  as  it  gave  no  indication  of  the 
interval  that  lay  between  any  two  dates. 

Neither  Latin  nor  Greek  inscriptions  in  Antioch  were 
dated  by  any  system  or  in  any  way.  A  number  of  the 
Latin  documents,  however,  can  be  assigned  to  a  narrow 
period  or  a  definite  reign  by  internal  evidence  and  the 
mention  of  some  known  person,  but  the  Greek  inscriptions 
are  almost  all  quite  vague,  and  internal  evidence  is  rarely 
of  any  use  for  dating  them.  The  lettering  furnishes  little 
evidence  under  the  middle  and  later  Empire,  for  forms  were 


28o  III.  Antiock 


at  that  period  employed  capriciously  and  without  any  uni- 
formity or  principle  of  development.  It  is  possible  to  argue 
in  some  cases  from  the  forms  of  letters  that  an  inscription, 
or  a  group  of  inscriptions,  is  late  and  belongs  to  the  third  or 
fourth  century,  or  that  it  is  early  and  belongs  to  the  first 
century  ;  but  it  is  unsafe  to  go  beyond  such  vague  inferences. 
Above  all,  it  is  utterly  impossible  at  this  period  to  arrange 
a  series  of  inscriptions  in  chronological  sequence  on  grounds 
of  lettering  alone.  We  can  however  state  confidently  that 
the  Antiochian  Greek  inscriptions  of  the  Roman  time  belong 
in  general  to  a  later  period  than  the  Latin ;  so  that  Greek 
must  have  strengthened  its  footing  in  the  Colonia  as  time 
passed.  By  an  indirect  argument,  also,  it  can  be  shown  that 
the  use  of  Greek  in  the  public  documents  of  the  Colonia 
can  hardly  have  occurred  earlier  than  the  third  century  after 
Christ. 

The  Colonia  Lystra  dedicated  a  statue  of  Concord  to  its 
sister  Colonia  Antiocheia,^"  thus  claiming  to  stand  in  the 
same  category  with  the  great  Roman  capital  of  Southern 
Galatia.  The  inscription  on  the  basis  of  this  statue  was  in 
Greek.  The  date  is  uncertain.  The  excellent  shape  and 
clear  cutting  of  the  letters  favour  a  fairly  early  time ;  but 
the  public  nature  of  the  monument  would  demand  very 
careful  engraving  at  whatever  period  it  was  made.  Still 
one  may  confidently  rank  it,  so  far  as  extant  remains  go, 
among  the  earliest  in  the  series  of  Greek  inscriptions  of 
Roman  Antioch,  and  certainly  the  earliest  public  Greek 
inscription  of  the  Colonia.  It  may  be  regarded  as  certain 
that  Lystra  would  have  been  very  chary  of  using  Greek  in 
addressing  her  sister  Colonia  and  claiming  kinship  with  the 
Roman  metropolis  of  the  Province ;  and  we  must  infer  that, 
when  this  inscription  was  composed,  Lystra  had  entirely  lost 


VIII.   Hellenism  in  Pisidian  Antioch 


2bl 


the  ability  to  write  Latin  and  engrave  a  document  in  that 
language.  Now,  Latin  was  employed  in  Lystra  for  inscrip- 
tions at  least  as  late  as  the  reign  of  Trajan,  A.D.  98-117.=^=' 
The  dedication  of  the  statue  of  Concord,  therefore,  could  not 
be  dated  much  earlier  than  about  150  A.D.  Further,  the 
colonial  coinage  of  Lystra  was  still  maintained  under  Faus- 
tina the  younger  and  Marcus  Aurclius,  161-75  A.D.  Those 
coins  were  struck  in  Latin;  and  that  language,  therefore, 
was  still  not  forgotten  entirely  in  Lystra.  Accordingly,  the 
Antiochian  dedication  is  not  likely  to  be  much  earlier  than 


Fig.  31.— Peace  (or  Concord  ?)  hurrying  to  Antioch  carrying  olive  branch 
and  sceptre  (coin  of  the  Emperor  Decius,  about  250  a.d.). 

about  200  A.D. ;  and,  inasmuch  as  none  of  the  other  Greek 
inscriptions  of  colonial  times  in  Antioch  seem  to  be  earlier 
than  this,  they  may  all  be  assigned  with  considerable  con- 
fidence to  the  third  and  fourth  centuries  after  Christ. 

If  the  figure  of  Concord  were  represented  on  Antiochian 
coins,  one  might  infer  that  the  statue  dedicated  by  Lystra 
had  suggested  the  coin-type,  and  thus  get  some  evidence  as 
to  date  :  but  Concord  has  not  yet  been  recognised  on  any  of 
the  coins.  It  cannot  be  assumed  that  Lystra  would  follow 
the  ordinary  Roman  representation  of  Concord,  as  a  standing 


282 


III.   Antioch 


figure  very  similiar  in  attitude  to  Fig.  32,  but  carrying  the 
horn  of  plenty  over  her  left  arm,  and  holding  a  flat  cup 
(patera)  in  her  outstretched  right  hand.  It  is  possible  that 
the  running  figure  carrying  an  olive  branch,  and  a  sceptre 
(Fig.  31),  who  appears  on  coins  about  248  A.D.  and  later, 
may  symbolise  the  one  Colonia  hastening  to  greet  the  other. 
Although  the  olive  branch  was,  strictly  speaking,  appropriated 
rather  to  Peace  than  to  Concord,  yet  the  two  ideas  are 
closely  akin,  and  Lystra  might  readily  use  the  one  for  the 


Fig,  32. — Allegorical  Figure  (the  Genius  of  the  City  as  Concord  ?  or  as 
Good  Fortune,  or  as  Plenty  ?)  holding  caduceus  and  cornucopia  (coin  of 
the  Emperor  Decius). 

Other.  Also,  the  standing  goddess  of  Fig.  32,  with  cornucopia 
and  caduceus,  who  is  by  some  interpreted  as  Peace,  by  others 
as  Good  Fortune,^*  but  who  does  not  agree  with  the  regular 
type  of  either  goddess,  may  have  been  the  Lystran  conception 
of  Concord.  This  figure  also  belongs  to  the  middle  of  the 
third  century.  Such  suggestions,  however,  are  mere  vague 
possibilities  ;  but  they  do  not  tend  to  discredit  the  conclusion 
to  which  we  have  come.     See  also  §  IX. 

Those   public   documents   of  Antioch  expressed  in   the 
Greek  language  are  usually  of  the  class  intended  to  be  read 


VIII.    Hellenism  in  Pisidian  Antioch         283 

by  the  people,  as,  e.g.^  the  dedication  of  a  public  weighing- 
machine  in  the  Forum,  which  one  could  hardly  date  later 
than  the  third  century.  On  the  other  hand  inscriptions  of 
a  more  purely  governmental  character  were  in  Latin  even 
during  the  fourth  century. ^*^  The  distinction  shows  that  the 
use  of  Latin  was  retained  for  formal  purposes,  after  it  had 
ceased  to  be  understood  by  the  mass  of  the  population. 

The  disuse  of  Latin  was  coincident  with  the  revival  of 
the  Oriental  spirit  in  the  East ;  and  to  a  certain  extent 
Antioch  must  have  been  affected  by  this  revival.  But 
throughout  central  Asia  Minor  the  new  Orientalism  was 
strongly  Hellenised ;  the  further  west  one  goes  in  the 
country,  the  stronger  is  the  Hellenisation,  and  in  Pisidian 
Antioch  of  the  fourth  century  we  find  a  Hellenic,  not  an 
Oriental  civilisation:  the  city  was  Pisidian  only  in  name, 
and  the  name  meant  only  that  it  was  the  capital  of  the 
Imperial  Province  Pisidia,  but  it  was  still  the  centre  of 
Hellenism  in  a  wide  district.  But  in  its  Hellenism  there  was 
mingled  a  certain  Anatolian  element  with  the  Greek  tone, 
due  to  a  recoil  from  the  more  purely  European  tone  of  Rome, 
which  had  not  assimilated,  but  only  dominated  the  East. 
Domination  of  one  by  the  other  is  a  fragile  basis  on 
which  to  arrange  a  State  mixed  of  East  and  West.  Greek 
civilisation,  on  the  contrary,  had  amalgamated  with  the 
Eastern  races  and  coalesced  with  Orientalism  in  a  mixed 
Graeco-Asiatic  system  of  law  and  custom.^*''  The  new 
Orientalism  was  however  far  from  being  unaffected  by  the 
lesson  of  Roman  organisation.  It  had  caught  up  ideas  and 
elements  from  the  Roman  systems,  and  applied  them  in  its 
own  way  to  its  own  purposes. 

In  this  way  the  later  Roman  Antioch  gradually  ceased  to 
be  a  Roman  city,  and  took  on  the  character  of  a  Graeco-Asiatic 


284  III.   Antioch 


city.  It  no  longer  styled  itself  a  Colonia  but  used  the  Greek 
term  Metropolis,  Its  magistrates  gradually  disused  the  Latin 
title  duumvir  and  took  the  Greek  title  strategos.  It  is  an 
interesting  parallel  that  when  the  Greek  Luke  describes  the 
action  in  the  Roman  Colonia  Philippi,  he  calls  the  duumvirs 
stratcgoi.  The  senate  no  longer  called  itself  an  Ordo,  but 
a  Boule.  These  changes  are  not  merely  a  matter  of  name ; 
they  are  the  outward  indication  of  a  deep-lying  and  complete 
change  of  spirit.  The  Roman  spirit  was  dying  out,  and  the 
Provinces  were  establishing  their  supremacy  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  whole  Imperial  body. 

These  facts,  though  belonging  to  a  later  time,  indicate  the 
permanent  vitality  of  the  Greek  civilisation  in  Antioch, 
underlying  the  Roman  character  which  was  so  triumphant 
in  appearance  during  the  first  century,  A  right  instinct  led 
Paul  to  appeal  in  Greek  to  the  Greek  side  of  Antiochian 
feeling ;  but  the  facts  of  the  city  at  the  moment  guide  the 
historian  and  prevent  him  from  using  the  term  Hellenes 
about  the  auditors  to  whom  Paul  appealed.  The  municipal 
government  of  Antioch  in  St.  Paul's  time  was  Roman  in  its 
feeling  ;  the  governing  classes  were  proud  of  their  Roman 
character.  But  the  Romanisation  was  only  superficial.  The 
Italian  colonists  graduall)'  melted  into  the  mass  of  the  popu- 
lation, which  was  Hellenised  Oriental,  but  the  Roman  char- 
acter though  only  superficial  lasted  long,  as  appears  from 
a  fact  observable  in  the  coinage.  The  letters  S,  R.,  which 
occur  regularly  on  coins  of  Antioch  from  about  200  A.D. 
onwards,  indicate  the  Senatus  Romanus,  and  this  interpre- 
tation, which  cannot  be  doubted,  points  to  some  closer 
relation  to  Rome  and  the  Senate.  The  same  letters  occur 
on  coins  of  Iconium  :  see  Part  IV.,  p.  366,  where  their  mean, 
ing  is  discussed. 


IX.    The  Religion  of  Antioch  285 

The  truth  is  that  the  Romans  of  Antioch  were  the  upper 
and  governing  class,  a  local  aristocracy ;  and  their  character 
must  be  distinguished  from  that  of  the  non-Roman  popu- 
lation, the  Hellenised  Anatolians,  both  Magnesians  and 
native  Phrygians,  who  amalgamated  more  readily.  The 
distinction  between  the  governing  aristocracy  and  the  mass 
of  the  population  appears  clearly  in  the  narrative  of  Acts 
(see  §  X). 

§  IX.    The  Religion  of  Antiocr 

The  chief  god  of  Antioch  was  Men,  as  Strabo  mentions, 
and  his  authority  is  confirmed  by  the  coins  and  by  the  in- 
scriptions of  the  city.  One  of  the  commonest  types  on  the 
very  numerous  and  varied  coins  of  the  Colonia  shows  the  god 
(named  on  many  Mcnsis  in  the  Latin  translation),  a  standing, 
fully  draped  figure  wearing  the  Phrygian  high-pointed  cap  on 
his  head,  with  the  horns  of  the  crescent  moon  appearing 
above  and  behind  his  shoulders :  he  rests  his  left  arm  on  a 
column  to  bear  the  weight  of  a  Victory  which  stands  on  his 
hand,  and  raises  the  left  knee  to  plant  the  foot  on  a  bull's 
head  lying  on  the  ground  :  in  his  right  hand  he  holds  a  long 
sceptre :  beside  his  right  foot  a  cock  stands  on  the  ground 
(Fig.  33).  The  complicated  symbolism  is  difficult  to.interpret ; 
but  certainly  it  shows  the  effort  of  Hellenic  anthropomorphic 
art  to  indicate  a  complex  Divine  idea,  remote  from  any 
strictly  Greek  conception.  The  bull's  head  often  appears  on 
tombstones  in  Asia  Minor,  and  was  certainly  widely  employed 
as  a  symbol  that  was  efficacious  to  avert  evil.  The  cock  also 
occurs  alone  as  the  type  on  the  reverse  of  some  small  Anti- 
ochian  coins :  in  such  cases  it  is  doubtless  to  be  understood 
as  a  part  standing  for  the  whole  of  the  Divine  image,  when 
there  presentation  had  to  be  simplified  and  abbreviated  on  a 


286 


III.   Antioch 


small  coin.  The  meaning  of  tlie  symbol  is  obscure.  The 
Victory  bearing  a  trophy  which  the  god  bears  on  his  hand 
marks  him  as  the  supreme  deity  and  victorious  power. 

The  resemblance  of  the  name  Men  to  the  Greek  word 
Men  (month)  led  to  much  confusion  and  even  error  which 
was  made  already  by  the  Greeks,  and  has  been  commonly 
followed  by  modern  scholars,  regarding  the  correspondence 
between  Anatolian  and  Greek  religious  ideas.  It  was  falsely 
supposed  that  the  Anatolian  deity  Men  was  simply  the 
Moon-god.     Hence  also  his  name  was   mistranslated   in 


FiQ.  33. — The  God  of  Antioch,  Men,  holding  Victory  on  his  right  hand. 

Latin  as  Mensis  on  coins  and  Luna  in  an  inscription,^*'^  and 
the  objects  above  his  shoulders  were  misunderstood  as  the 
horns  of  the  crescent  moon,  whereas  originally  they  were 
probably  only  wings  as  represented  in  archaic  art.  The 
symbolism  shows  that  the  Men  of  Antioch  was  not  the  mere 
embodiment  of  a  single  object  like  the  moon,  but  an  en- 
visagement  of  the  general  Divine  idea,  supreme  and  many- 
sided.  He  was  simply  the  great  god  ;  and  his  name  Men 
was  probably  a  shortened  form  of  the  longer  Manes,  which 
also  occurs  widely  as  the  name  of  an  Anatolian  deity. 


IX.    The  Religion  of  Antioch  287 

The  variety  of  Greek  names  that  were  applied  to  Men 
at  Antioch  (as  seen  in  the  inscriptions)  also  indicate  that  his 
nature  was  very  complex,  so  that  he  could  be  plausibly 
identified  with  widely  diverse  Greek  gods.  He  is  called 
Dionysos,  Apollo  and  Asklepios ;  and  he  must  therefore 
have  been  the  giver  of  wine,  the  god  of  prophecy  (or  the 
sun-god),  and  the  great  physician.  In  short,  he  is  the 
Anatolian  supreme  god,  the  impersonation  of  their  entire 
conception  of  the  Divine  nature  and  power. 

In  the  religion  that  was  characteristic  of  Central  Anatolia 
generally  and  of  Phrygia  especially,  the  principal  deity  was 
not  male  but  female.  The  Great  Mother  was  to  the  Phry- 
gian peoples  the  true  and  supreme  embodiment  of  the  Divine 
nature.  The  god  was  secondary  and  subordinate,  though 
always  a  necessary  element  in  her  life,  inasmuch  as  the 
Divine  life  was  the  model  and  prototpye  of  human  life  and 
human  society.  In  various  districts  of  the  country  we  find 
that  the  god  stands  forth  most  prominently  in  the  exoteric 
form  of  the  religion  ;  but  even  there,  if  we  can  penetrate 
beneath  the  surface,  we  find  that  in  the  esoteric  ritual  of  the 
Mysteries  the  goddess  was  the  prominent  personality,  and 
the  god  was  only  secondary.  The  exoteric  form  of  the  re- 
ligion was  largely  determined  by  historic  conditions  and 
especially  by  mixture  of  races.  New  peoples,  among  whom 
the  female  sex  occupied  a  less  honoured  and  influential 
position  than  it  did  in  the  primitive  Anatolian  society,  came 
to  be  widely  dominant  in  Central  Anatolia.  These  new 
peoples  must,  of  course,  acknowledge  the  old  religion  of 
the  country;  and  generally  they  recognised  it  as  their 
supreme  religion ;  but  the  new  social  conditions  demanded 
new  religious  forms  to  correspond  to  them,  and  the  god  was 
publicly  more  acknowledged  and  regarded  than  the  goddess. 


288 


III.   Antioch 


It  might,  therefore,  be  plausibly  conjectured  that  in  the 
more  secret  ritual  of  the  Antiochian  god,  the  Great  Goddess 
would  assume  prominence.  We  are,  however,  not  reduced 
to  conjecture  ;  clear  evidence  exists  that  such  was  the  case. 

On  a  coin  about  238  A.D.  the  well-known  image  of  Cybele 
appears,  seated  on  her  throne,  holding  the  small  drum 
(tympanon)  which  was  needed  in  the  ritual  of  her  worship, 
and  with  her  favourite  animals  on  each  side  of  her  chair,  the 
lions.  This  is  the  Phrygian  goddess  in  the  form  that  is 
commonest  over  the  Graeco- Anatolian  lands  (Fig.  34). 


Fig.  34. — Cybele  seated  with  her  Lions  at  her  feet ;  she  wears  a  crown  of 
towers  and  holds  in  her  hands  a  tympanum  (coin  of  the  Emperor 
Gordian  III.). 

It  is  not  possible  in  Antioch,  as  it  was  in  Tarsus,  to  trace 
the  successive  settlers  in  the  city  by  their  various  patron 
deities  and  guardian  heroes.  The  population  of  Antioch 
was  far  simpler  in  its  composition  than  that  of  Tarsus. 
The  colonists  of  the  Hellenistic  city  did  not  succeed  in 
Antioch  to  an  ancient  inheritance  of  fame  and  achievement, 
as  they  did  in  Tarsus.  They  made  a  city  amidst  a  multitude 
of  villages,  each  featureless,  all  having  one  common  character, 
all  the  servants  of  the  central  hieron,  knowing  nothing  of 


IX.    The  Religion  of  Antioch 


289 


self-government  and  individuality,  content  to  have  their  life 
ordered  for  them  by  hieratic  authority.  The  new  settlers 
of  the  Hellenic  city,  apart  from  Jews  (whose  religion  was 
private  and  never  left  any  trace  on  public  monuments  of 
that  period),  were  Hellenes  of  Magnesia,  wholly  devoted  to 
their  own  goddess  Artemis,  who  was  essentially  Anatolian, 
closely  akin  to  the  Ephesian  goddess  and  differentiated  from 
the  Phrygian  merely  by  certain  local  characteristics  of  no 
serious  importance.  The  goddess  of  the  new  population  was 
practically  the  same  as  the  goddess  who  already  had  her 


Fig.  35. — The  Genius  of  Antioch  holding  cornucopia  and  olive  branch  (coin 
of  the  Emperor  Severus;. 

home  in  this  region.  No  other  stratum  of  population  has 
left  any  recognisable  impression  on  Antioch,  except  the 
Roman  colonists  in  25  B.C. ;  and  they  seem  to  have  brought 
no  gods  with  them  except  the  Majesty  of  Rome  and  the 
Emperors :  soldiers  of  a  legion  in  the  Civil  War,  of  various 
origin,  united  only  by  their  common  loyalty  to  the  Roman 
State  and  the  gods  of  the  legion,  they  seem  to  have  accepted 
readily  the  existing  religion  of  Antioch. 

The  city  then  was  devoted,  not  merely  to  Men,  but  also 
to  a  goddess  of  the  Artemis-Cybele  class,  sufficiently  Hellen- 

19. 


290 


III.  Antioch 


ised  in  external  character  to  suit  a  Hellenic  people  and  city. 
The  Genius  of  the  city,  who  is  represented  on  a  very  large 
number  of  colonial  coins,  is  distinctly  different  in  type  from 
the  ideal  representation  of  other  Gr^eco-Asiatic  cities.  She 
stands,  a  matronly  figure,  in  a  Greek  lady's  dress — a  long- 
sleeved  chiton  confined  by  a  girdle,  carrying  a  horn  of  plenty 
and  a  branch,  the  symbol  of  purifying  power ;  the  kalathos 
on  her  head  is  the  symbol  of  Divine  might  (Fig.  35).  In 
a  rather  different  and  more  maiden-like  image  she  stands 
with  long  sceptre  supporting  her  raised  left  hand,  while  with 


Fig.  36. — The  Genius  of  Antioch,  holding  sceptre,  emptying  her  cornucopia 
over  an  altar  (coin  of  the  Emperor  Verus,  a.d.  161-166). 

the  right  she  empties  her  cornucopia  over  an  altar  (Fig.  36). 
In  Fig.  37  the  Emperor  Gordian  III.  holds  the  Genius  of 
Fig.  35  on  his  left  hand,  while  he  extends  his  right  hand 
to  clasp  the  hand  of  the  city.  Antioch  is  here  represented  by 
the  City  Genius  of  the  second  type,  a  young  virgin  with 
sceptre  in  one  hand ;  she  has  laid  aside  the  horn  of  plenty 
in  order  to  be  free  to  extend  the  right  hand  to  welcome  the 
Emperor.  Between  them  is  a  small  altar.  Both  figures 
stand  on  pedestals :  and  the  first  letter  of  the  name  is  in- 
scribed on  that  on  which  Antioch  stands.     From  the  pedestals 


IX.    The  Religio7i  of  Antiock 


291 


we  may  infer  that  the  coin  type  is  derived  from  a  pair  of 
statues  publicly  exhibited  in  some  open  place  in  the  city. 

These  two  types  of  the  Genius  of  Antioch  were  evidently 
both  familiar  in  the  city,  doubtless  in  sculpture.  One  ap- 
proximates more  to  the  type  of  the  virgin  Artemis,  the  other 
to  the  type  of  the  matron  Demeter,  a  Hellenised  form  cor- 
responding to  Cybele.  The  double  conception  of  the  god- 
dess is  quite  in  keeping  with  the  ancient  Divine  ideal  :  the 
Divine  nature  is  at  once  youthful  and  mature,  "  maiden  and 


Fig,  37.— The  Emperor  Gordian  III.  in  a.d.  235  holding  the  Genius  of  the 
city  in  his  right  hand  and  greeting  the  Goddess  of  the  city  (marked 
A[ntioch]).     The  latter  holds  a  sceptre.     Between  them  is  an  altar. 

mother  and  queen  " ;  the  mother  is  the  same  person  as  the 
daughter. 

The  two  ideal  figures  described  near  the  end  of  §  VIII. 
approximate  to  one  or  other  of  these  two  types ;  but  neither 
is  marked  on  the  coins  by  name,  as  Genius  of  the  Colon ia  ; 
and  both  probably  are  to  be  understood  as  embodiments  of 
aspects  of  the  city's  nature  and  purpose.  The  city's  duty 
was  to  preserve  peace  in  the  country,  and  cherish  concord 
among  the  Roman  towns ;  and  it  is  possible  that  those  two 
figures  represent  Peace  and  Concord ;  but  they  are  also  in 


292 


III.   Antioch 


a  sense  embodiments  of  the  colony  as  the  guardian  of  the 
land  and  chief  of  the  associated  colonies. 

One  other  idealisation  of  the  Colonia  still  must  be  men- 
tioned, as  it  marks  the  close  connection  between  the  Genius 
of  the  city  and  the  native  goddess  (Fig.  38).  This  is  a 
somewhat  complex  and  enigmatic  representation.  The  god- 
dess sits  on  a  throne,  like  Cybele  in  Fig.  34.  She  carries 
a  palm  branch  like  a  Victory  ;  Eros  runs  towards  her  knee, 
as  to  Aphrodite's ;  in  her  left  hand  she  holds  a  large  object, 


Fig.  38. — The  Goddess  of  Antioch  as  the  Lady  of  the  Limnai  (coin  of  the 
Emperor  Gordian  III,), 

which  seems  to  be  the  stern  of  a  ship.  If  this  interpreta- 
tion is  right,  the  authority  of  Antioch  must  have  extended 
over  the  Limnai,  and  probably  also  the  city  territory  touched 
the  east  shore ;  and  the  Colonia  is  represented  in  the  char- 
acter of  the  goddess  whose  home  was  on  the  Lakes. 

A  glance  into  the  history  of  the  Antiochian  cult  is  neces- 
sary to  show  the  character  of  this  goddess. 

The  region  of  Antioch  and  the  Limnai  ^^  was  the  property 
in  primitive  times  of  an  ancient  hieron  and  priestly  establish- 
ment^® which   exercised   theocratic  authority  over  a  wide 


IX.    The  Religion  of  Antioch  293 

district  and  a  large  subject  population.  Strabo  says  that 
Antioch  was  the  centre  and  seat  of  this  priestly  establish- 
ment ;  but  this  is  not  exactly  correct.  Antioch  was  a  Greek 
foundation  within  the  territory  of  the  hieron  ;  and  there  was 
in  the  city  a  temple  of  the  local  religion  in  an  outwardly 
Hellenised  form.  The  true  seat  of  the  old  cult  was  nearer 
to  the  north-eastern  corner  of  the  great  double  lake  called 
Limnai ;  but  exact  localisation  can  hardly  be  made  without 
excavations. 

A  cave,  simply  an  arched  opening  in  the  rock,  on  the 
north  side  of  Mount  Olympus,  where  it  extends  out  into  the 
Limnai,  was  visited  by  Miss  Gertrude  Bell  in  1907.  It  is 
regarded  by  the  Greeks  as  sacred,  and  a  panegyris  is  still 
held  by  them  there  every  year,  to  which  the  Christians  gather 
from  a  distance,  for  none  live  in  the  immediate  neii^hbour- 
hood.  The  cave  is  sacred  to  the  Virgin  Mother  of  God,  the 
Panagia,  who  has  taken  the  place  of  the  pagan  goddess. 
That  this  cave  was  once  a  sanctuary  of  the  Virgin  Artemis 
of  the  Limnai  may  be  regarded  as  certain  ;  similar  holy 
caves  of  Cybele  or  of  Artemis  are  well  known  ;  but  it  does 
not  follow  that  this  was  her  sole  or  even  her  principal  seat. 
There  was  probably  also  another  centre  of  her  worship  at 
some  point  north-east  of  the  Lakes,  from  which  are  derived 
the  numerous  inscriptions  described  below.  The  relation 
between  those  two  centres  was  similar  to  that  between  the 
great  temple  of  Artemis  at  Ephesus  and  her  old  holy  place 
in  the  mountains  to  the  south.^^* 

In  the  island  near  the  cave  Miss  Bell  also  saw  an  in- 
scription on  a  block  of  marble  covered  by  the  water  of  the 
lake.     This  ought  to  be  extracted  and  read. 

The  territory  of  the  deity  was  probably  taken  possession 
of  by  the  Seleucid  kings,  part  being  used  to  found  Antioch. 


294  ^^^-   Antioch 


When  the  Romans  destroyed  the  Seleucid  rule  over  these 
parts  of  Asia  Minor  in  189  B.C.,  they  set  Antioch  (and 
doubtless  also  ApoUonia)  free.  The  property  of  the  god, 
except  the  portion  assigned  to  Antioch,  was  then  restored  to 
the  priests  ;  and  the  old  theocracy  lasted  until  the  formation 
of  the  Province  Galatia  in  25  B.C.,  when  the  vast  estates  oi 
the  god  became  Imperial  property,  as  Strabo  mentions.^^  In 
place  of  government  by  the  god  through  his  priests  (a  system 
which  apparently  had  not  been  changed  by  the  kings,  who 
doubtless  made  the  priests  the  representatives  and  agents  of 
the  reigning  king),  a  more  Roman  method  of  administration 
was  inaugurated.  The  inscriptions  are  not  sufficient  to  furnish 
conclusive  evidence,  but  they  point  to  the  view  that  the  Im- 
perial administration  through  a  Procurator  (an  Imperial 
freedman)  and  Actor  or  Actores  (Imperial  slaves)  was  veiled 
to  some  degree  under  old  forms,  so  that  the  Procurator  was 
priest  of  the  cultus.  The  cultivators  of  the  estates  ^^  were 
subjects  directly  of  the  Emperor,  and  did  not  form  part  of  the 
Provincia.  They  were  enrolled  in  a  religious  association 
{collegium),  worshipping  the  Emperor  and  the  ancient  Phry- 
gian deity.  The  supreme  deity  is  frequently  mentioned  as 
Great  Artemis.  She  was  the  old  Phrygian  Mother  Goddess, 
the  unwedded  mother,  nourisher,  teacher  and  ruler  of  all  her 
people ;  and  the  forms  of  the  cult,  so  far  as  allusion  occurs 
to  them,  are  those  of  the  old  Phrygian  religion,  with  a  body 
of  subordinate  priests  or  ministers  called  by  the  ancient  title 
Galloi  and  an  Archigallos  as  their  chief.  All  these,  Galloi  and 
Archigallos,  were  under  the  Procurator's  authority  as  chief 
priest. 

The  Roman  administration  and  the  old  Phrygian  system 
on  these  estates  are  treated,  as  far  as  the  evidence  per- 
mits, in  the  writer's  paper  on  the  Tekmoreian  Guest-friends, 


IX.    The  Religion  of  Antloch  295 

Studies  in  the  History  of  the  Eastern  Provinces ^  pp.  305-377, 
where  all  the  evidence  is  collected. 

It  is  there  shown  how  the  ancient  system  of  life  and 
society,  as  organised  not  in  the  cities  but  in  the  villages 
grouped  round  the  central  temple,  acquired  new  strength 
during  the  third  century,  and  some  of  the  many  causes  which 
combined  to  produce  this  change  are  described.  The  Prov- 
inces were  no  longer  so  much  under  the  influence  of  Rome, 
nor  the  East  so  submissive  to  the  West :  the  subjects  were 
asserting  themselves,  not  to  break  up  the  Imperial  unity,  but 
to  modify  its  character.  A  religious  element  was  combined 
with  the  social.  The  great  struggle  between  Christianity  and 
the  Emperors  dominated  everything  in  the  Roman  world  : 
wherever  any  opposition  existed  between  two  parties  or 
groups  or  interests,  either  one  side  became  Christian,  the 
other  Imperial,  or  they  sank  their  opposition  and  united  to 
resist  the  enemy  and  defend  the  Empire.  The  Imperial 
policy  sought  to  strengthen  itself  by  alliance  with  the  national 
cults  and  the  national  life  in  Anatolia;  and  the  Imperial  es- 
tates were  made  strongholds  of  the  anti-Christian  action, 
which  in  the  third  century  took  a  more  energetic  form  and 
imitated  the  rival  religion  by  becoming  a  propaganda.  The 
Hellenic  ideal  of  city  life  decayed,  as  freedom  and  self-govern- 
ment disappeared  from  the  Hellenic  cities ;  and  the  spirit 
of  Hellenism  could  not  survive  when  liberty  had  left  the 
Roman  world.  Thus  the  citizens  of  Antioch  degenerated 
towards  the  level  of  the  people  on  the  estates ;  and  some  of 
them  abandoned  the  city  and  adopted  village  life.  The  stan- 
dard of  education  rose  on  the  estates  and  in  the  villages; 
and  the  Greek  language  was  gradually  adopted  in  place  of 
Phrygian  or  Pisidian.  A  monotonous  level  of  education, 
midway  between  the  old  Hellenism  of  the  cities  and  the 


296  III.   Antioch 


ignorance  of  the  rustics,  was  established  over  the  whole  re- 
gion. It  is  this  mixed  system,  containing  elements  taken 
both  from  Orientalism  and  from  Hellenism,  and  some  even 
from  Roman  life,  which  is  presented  to  us  in  the  later  third 
century  and  which  we  have  sometimes  spoken  of  as  a  reviving 
Orientalism,  sometimes  as  the  new  Hellenism  victorious  over 
the  Roman  spirit  in  Antioch.  The  East  absorbed  the  Euro- 
pean, but  the  new  product  spoke  the  language  of  Europe  and 
was  in  other  ways  altered  in  character. 

The  religion  of  Antioch  was  in  origin  identical  with  the 
Artemis-worship  of  the  native  population  on  the  estates ; 
but  Hellenic  education  and  custom  imparted  a  certain  super- 
ficial alteration  to  the  cult  without  giving  any  really  Greek 
character  to  it.  The  "very  manifest  god  Dionysos,"  as  the 
deily  is  styled  in  one  inscription,  is  not  really  more  Greek  in 
character  than  Men  himself.  The  citizens  were  Hellenes  in 
education.  They  had  the  tone  inevitably  nurtured  in  freemen, 
who  for  generations  had  exercised  the  sovereign  rights  of 
self-government  through  elective  magistrates,  and  had  met 
for  free  discussion  in  public  meetings.  Thus  they  were  raised 
intellectually  far  above  the  level  of  the  still  half-enslaved 
Phrygian  population  on  the  Imperial  estates  around  Antioch, 
and  in  such  a  position  the  Hellenic  pride  of  birth  and  intellect 
must  have  been  fostered  and  strengthened.  But  in  religion 
and  in  racial  temperament  they  were  Anatolian  (except  the 
colonial  Romans,  who  were  still  a  separate  and  superior  caste 
in  the  time  of  St.  Paul), 

§  X.    First  Appearance  of  Paul  and  Barnabas  in 

THE  AnTIOCHIAN  SYNAGOGUE. 

We  turn  now  to  study  the  visits  which  Paul  paid  to 
Antioch,  and  to  compare  the  information  given  in  the  Acts 
with  the  results  attained  in  the  preceding  sections. 


X.    Paul  and  Barnabas  in  the  Synagogue     297 

On  his  first  visit  in  company  with  Barnabas  he  crossed 
the  broad  and  rugged  mountain  region  of  Taurus,  coming 
northward  from  Perga  to  Antioch  probably  in  the  late 
summer  or  autumn  of  the  year  46^''  after  Christ,  As  the 
narrative  of  Luke  states  the  circumstances,  the  two  Apostles 
entered  the  Synagogue  as  comparative  strangers  on  the  first 
Sabbath  after  their  arrival,  and  took  their  seat.  The  Rulers 
of  the  Synagogue,  after  the  lessons  for  the  day  (probably 
from  Deuteronomy  i.  and  Isaiah  i.)*"  had  been  read,  sent 
them  an  invitation  to  address  the  congregation  :  "  Brethren, 
if  ye  have  any  word  of  exhortation  for  the  people,  say  on  ". 

It  cannot  be  supposed  that  the  Rulers  would  have  invited 
any  chance  stranger  to  speak  in  public.  We  must  therefore 
conclude  either  that  Paul  and  Barnabas  took  their  seats  in 
some  special  place,  showing  thereby  that  they  desired  to 
address  the  people,  or  that  previously  they  had  made  known 
to  these  Rulers  their  character  and  mission  as  teachers  : 
perhaps  both  these  preliminaries  had  been  observed.  The 
former  alternative  is  adopted  by  J.  Lightfoot,  who  supposes 
that  they  sat  down  in  the  place  appropriated  to  the  Rabbis. 
The  example  of  Jesus  in  Luke  iv.  16  shows  that  a  person 
who  desired  to  speak  in  the  Synagogue  had  the  opportunity 
permitted  him  by  Jewish  custom,  just  as  is  the  Quaker  custom 
still;  but  there  was  this  difference,  that  among  the  Jews  the 
Rulers  were  charged  with  the  superintendence  of  public 
worship,  the  choice  of  speakers,  and  general  care  for  the 
order  of  the  proceedings,  whereas  among  the  Quakers  any 
one  whom  the  Spirit  prompts  is  free  to  rise  and  speak.  It 
seems  therefore  probable  that  the  Rulers  satisfied  themselves 
previously  as  to  the  qualifications  of  Paul  and  Barnabas ; 
and  this  implies  either  that  some  private  communication  had 
taken  place  before  the  public  worship  began,  or  that  the 


298  III.   Antioch 


Apostles  had  already  been  some  time  in  Antioch  and  ac- 
quired a  reputation  as  teachers  and  preachers. 

Formerly  I  took  the  latter  view,'*^  and  supposed  that  the 
inattention  to  precise  statement  of  the  lapse  of  time,  which 
characterised  Luke  in  common  with  most  ancient  writers, 
made  him  here  slur  over  a  certain  interval  during  which  the 
Apostles  lived  and  worked  in  Antioch  till  they  had  become 
noteworthy  figures  in  the  city.  This  supposition  would  ex- 
plain how  it  came  that  the  Rulers  on  a  certain  Sabbath 
invited  the  Apostles  to  address  the  congregation ;  and  it  is 
quite  in  keeping  with  Luke's  style  of  narrative  that  he  should 
hurry  over  the  early  days  of  the  residence  in  Antioch,  and 
concentrate  attention  on  the  critical  moment.  At  that  time 
it  seemed  to  me  to  be  impossible  and  incredible  that  already, 
on  the  second  Sabbath  of  their  residence  (xiii.  44),  Paul  and 
Barnabas  should  have  succeeded  in  catching  the  ear  ot 
"almost  the  whole  city"  and  in  alienating  the  Jews.  But 
further  study  has  gradually  brought  me  to  a  different  view. 
That  which  once  seemed  impossible  and  incredible  must  be 
accepted  as  the  fact.  A  similar  change  of  opinion  has  come 
about  in  regard  to  many  things  during  the  last  yeais  of  the 
nineteenth  and  tlie  first  years  of  the  twentieth  century: 
hundreds  of  assertions  which  would  formerly  have  been 
pronounced  incredible  and  impossible  are  now  accepted  as 
obvious  statements  of  fact.  The  word  "impossible"  should 
rarely  be  used  in  criticism,  or  only  in  a  different  way  from 
that  in  which  it  was  formerly  employed :  it  is  a  dangerous 
and  question-begging  term. 

In  this  case  Luke  is  quietly  explaining  and  emphasising 
that  instantaneous  and  marvellous  effect  on  the  Galatians, 
which  so  deeply  impressed  Paul  himself  and  which  he  de- 
scribes ill  his  letter,  "  ye  received  me  as  an  angel  of  God  ", 


XL   Paul's  Address  to  the  Galatians        299 

He  was  welcomed  by  the  native  pagan  Galatians  as  one  who 
came  bringing  the  message  of  God,  as  one  who  must  be 
believed  and  trusted  implicitly,  as  one  for  whom  nothing 
that  they  could  do  was  too  much,  to  whom  they  were  ready 
to  give  up  all  that  was  dearest  and  to  sacrifice  their  very  eyes. 
Such  a  reception — that  a  pagan  city  should  welcome  a  Jewish 
stranger  as  an  angel  of  God — was  marvellous,  impossible, 
incredible ;  but  Luke  describes  how  it  occurred ;  and  this 
striking  agreement  between  Acts  and  the  Epistle  proves  that 
we  must  accept  to  the  fullest  extreme  the  strange  and  at  first 
sight  almost  incredible  account  given  by  Luke.  Paul  was 
invited  to  address  the  audience  in  the  Synagogue  on  the  first 
Sabbath  after  he  arrived.  Weak  and  showing  traces  of  an 
illness  which  was  popularly  regarded  as  a  direct  infliction 
of  Divine  wrath  on  a  guilty  and  accursed  person,  he  was  re- 
ceived by  the  heathen  part  of  his  audience  at  least,  not  with 
contempt  or  disapproval  as  outcast  and  cursed  by  God,  but 
with  enthusiasm  as  the  messenger  come  from  God.*^ 

This  striking  inauguration  of  the  Galatian  mission,  natur- 
ally made  a  deep  impression  on  Paul's  mind,  as  we  see 
throughout  the  impassioned  outpouring  of  his  feelings  in  tie 
Galatian  letter.  While  we  cannot  explahi  with  perfect  con- 
fidence exactly  how  it  was  that  the  Rulers  came  to  invite 
these  strangers  to  speak,  we  must  accept  the  fact  that  it  was 
so.  Just  as  at  Phihppi  (xvi.  13),  so  at  Pisidian  Antioch,  the 
events  of  the  first  Sabbath  in  a  new  city  and  a  strange  land 
are  described  with  especial  interest  and  minuteness  by  the 
historian — a  good  example  of  his  method  in  narrative. 

§  XI.    Paul's  First  Address  to  a  Galatian 

Audience. 

A  speech  delivered  on  an  occasion  like  this  must  be  in- 
teresting to  the  student  of  history.     The  question  must  be 


300  III.   Antioch 


asked,  whether  we  have  in  Acts  xiii.  16-41  a  report  of  that 
speech,  or  merely  an  address  embodying  in  Luke's  own 
language  his  conception  of  the  way  in  which  Paul  was  in 
the  habit  of  appealing  to  a  mixed  audience  such  as  might 
gather  in  a  Synagogue  of  the  western  Jewish  Diaspora. 
This  important  question  is  sometimes  put  in  a  misleading 
fashion,  as  for  example  in  the  long  footnote  in  Meyer- 
Wendt's  Kommentar,  eighth  edition,  p.  234,  where  it  is  ex- 
pressed in  the  form  of  an  alternative  ;  either  this  address 
was  found  by  the  author  of  Acts  in  the  written  Source  on 
which  he  was  dependent  in  this  part  of  his  work,  or  it  is 
the  author's  free  invention  without  any  authority.  Neither 
alternative  is  correct.  Both  are  false.  But  when  the  ques- 
tion is  so  expressed,  the  unwary  reader,  like  the  incautious 
critic,  is  readily  seduced  into  the  belief  that  one  or  other 
alternative  must  be  right ;  and,  as  the  style  and  vocabulary 
of  the  Lukan  writing  have  influenced  the  passage,  there  is 
an  almost  inevitable  tendency  towards  the  conclusion  that 
we  have  in  this  passage  a  freely  invented  oration  which  the 
author  of  [Acts  considered  suitable  for  the  occasion  and 
characteristic  of  Paul.  Luke  was  not  in  this  part  of  his 
work  dependent  on  any  written  Source,  but  on  information 
from  the  actors  and  eye-witnesses,  and  on  his  own  personal 
knowledge.*^  His  style  has  free  play,  when  he  is  reporting 
in  brief  a  long  speech. 

Let  us  therefore  take  the  address  as  Luke  reports  it,  and 
consider  its  character  and  its  suitability  to  the  audience 
before  whom  it  is  said  to  have  been  delivered. 

In  the  first  place  we  observe  that  it  is  not  addressed  to 
the  Jews  of  the  Synagogue  alone.  From  the  opening  to  the 
close  it  is  addressed  to  the  double  audience,  the  Jews  and 
the  God-fearing  Gentiles,**  all  pagans  by  education,  but  at- 


XI.   Pauls  Address  to  the  Galatians        301 

tracted  within  the  circle  of  Jewish  influence  in  virtue  of  a 
certain  natural  affinity  in  them  to  the  lofty  morality  of  the 
teaching  in  the  Synagogue. 

Nor  is  the  double  address  expressed  in  the  way  of  de- 
preciating the  second  kind  of  auditors  as  an  inferior  class. 
There  is  nothin^^  resembling  the  tone  of  the  modern  Greek 
priest  in  a  Greek  village  of  Macedonia,  where  a  small  body 
of  Wallachian  settlers,  too  poor  to  have  a  church  of 
their  own,  attended  the  Greek  service,  and  listened  to  the 
address  of  the  priest :  "  Christian  Brethren,  and  ye  Walla- 
chians".^^  Paul's  opening  words  are  perfectly  courteous  to 
both  classes,  "  Men  of  Israel  and  ye  that  fear  God,  hearken  ". 

Incidentally  we  observe  here  how  inaccurate  is  the  view 
taken  of  this  address  in  the  above-quoted  footnote  of  Meyer- 
Wendt's  Komnientar :  Dr.  Wendt  states  the  opinion  that 
this  address  is  a  free  composition  by  the  author  of  the  Acts, 
in  which  he  tried  to  exemplify  the  way  that  Paul  on  his 
missionary  journey  preached  the  Gospel  before  the  Jews. 
The  distinguished  commentator  has  failed  to  observe  the 
most  important  fact  about  this  address,  the  fact  which  gives 
character  and  effect  to  it,  that  from  first  to  last  it  includes 
the  Gentiles  in  its  clearly  expressed  scope.  What  help  for 
the  understanding  of  the  speech  can  be  expected  from  a 
discussion  which  leaves  out  of  count  the  most  essential  and 
remarkable  fact  in  the  address  ? 

In  the  second  place,  as  the  orator  proceeds  and  grows 
warm  in  his  subject,  his  address  becomes  still  more  com- 
plimentary to  the  God-fearing  Gentiles  and  actually  raises 
them  to  the  same  level  with  the  Jews  as  "  Brethren  ".  At 
first  he  had  distinguished  the  two  classes  of  auditors,  Jews 
and  God-fearing ;  but  in  xiii.  26  he  sums  them  up  together 
with  a  loftier  courtesy  as  "  Brethren,  children  of  the  stock 


302  III.  Antiock 

of  Abraham,  and  those  among  you  that  fear  God  ".  That 
Brethren  is  not  confined  to  the  first  class,  but  common  to 
both,  is  shown  by  verse  38,  by  the  comparison  of  the 
climax  from  16,  through  26,  to  38,  and  by  the  terms  r)^llv 
and  v^uv  in  26.  The  two  classes,  which  were  kept  separate 
in  the  opening  words,  are  now  united  as  parts  of  the  genus 
"  Brethren",  Then  finally  in  verse  38  the  distinction  of  two 
classes  in  the  audience  disappears,  and  all  are  identified  on 
the  higher  plane  of  Christian  thought  as  "  Brethren  ". 

Doubtless  this  was  the  first  occasion  on  which  either  in 
this  or  in  any  other  Synagogue  the  Gentiles  had  been 
addressed  by  a  Jew  as  "  Brethren  ".  Here  we  stand  on  the 
same  level  as  in  the  Galatian  letter  iii.  26-30,  "  Ye  are  all 
sons  of  God  .  .  .  there  can  be  neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  there 
can  be  neither  bond  nor  free,  there  can  be  no  male  and 
female :  for  ye  are  all  one  in  Christ  Jesus  ". 

What  a  development  here  appears  from  the  language 
which  Paul  had  used  to  Peter  in  a  Gentile  city  before  a 
Gentile  audience  only  a  short  time  before!  "We  being 
Jews  by  nature  and  not  sinners  of  the  Gentiles."  It  is,  of 
course,  true  that  the  words  were  uttered  dramatically,  as 
Paul  was  speaking  from  the  point  of  view  of  his  Jewish  an- 
tagonists and  employing  their  language.  But  even  with  this 
explanation  I  feel  no  longer  able  to  hold  the  opinion  ex- 
pressed in  St.  Paul  the  Traveller,  p.  138  f.,  that  that  scene 
occurred  immediately  before  the  Apostolic  Council.  After 
hesitating  long  I  find  myself  decisively  driven  over  to  the 
view  which  at  first  I  rejected  (but  which  my  friend  Mr,  F. 
Warburton  Lewis  has  often  urged  on  me)  that  the  visit  of 
Peter  to  Antioch  (Gal.  ii.  1 1  ff,)  preceded  the  first  missionary 
journey  of  Paul  and  Barnabas,  and  that  he  was  sent  from 
Jerusalem  as  far  as  Syrian  Antioch  to  inspect  and  report  on 


XII.    The  Approach  to  the  Gentiles         303 

this  new  extension  of  the  Church,  just  as  he  had  been  sent 
previously  to  Samaria  along  with  John  on  a  similar  errand. 
Accordingly  we  see  that  the  sermon  at  Pisidian  Antioch 
was  given  by  Luke  in  such  detail,  not  merely  because  it 
inaugurated  an  important  stage  in  the  development  of  Paul's 
sphere  of  work,  viz.  the  beginning  of  the  Galatian  Churches, 
but  also  because  it  represented  a  new  step  in  his  thought 
and  method. 

§  XII.  The  Approach  to  the  Gentiles. 
But,  while  the  Gentiles  are  associated  on  a  footing  of  such 
perfect  equality  with  the  Jews  in  this  address,  they  are  re- 
garded entirely  on  the  side  of  their  approach  to  the  Jewish 
beliefs,  and  not  the  faintest  reference  is  made  to  their  own 
religious  conceptions  apart  from  and  previous  to  Judaism. 
In  that  respect  this  sermon  stands  in  marked  contrast  to  the 
oration  to  the  Athenians  and  the  brief  address  to  the  Lystran 
mob,  in  which  Christian  doctrine  is  set  before  the  auditors  as 
the  development  of  their  own  natural  conceptions  of  and 
aspirations  towards  the  Divine  power.  Here,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  God-fearing  Gentiles  are  addressed  as  standing  on 
the  same  plane  of  thought  with  the  Jews,  and  the  correct  text 
of  xiii.  43,  followed  in  the  Revised  Version,*^  "  And  as  they 
went  out  they  besought  that  these  words  might  be  spoken  to 
them  the  next  sabbath,"  shows  that  the  Jews  in  the  Synagogue 
did  not  at  the  moment  appreciate  (any  more  than  Dr.  Wendt 
appreciates)  the  importance  of  the  inclusion  of  the  Gentiles 
by  Paul  in  his  address  and  in  his  gospel.  The  topics  were 
so  purely  Jewish  that  the  appeal  to  the  Gentiles,  though 
clearly  marked,  was  ignored  as  a  mere  piece  of  courtesy  or 
regarded  as  accidental  by  the  Jews  generally.  Possibly  some 
of  the  Jews  were  offended  already  by  this  extreme  complais- 


304  ni.   Antioch 


ance  to  the  Gentiles,  but  they  are  not  alluded  to  by  the 
historian,  who  only  says  that  many  of  the  Jews  and  Gentiles 
followed  the  Apostles,  when  they  continued  their  mission. 

But,  although  the  elevation  of  the  Gentiles  to  the  same 
level  with  the  Jews  is  so  skilfully  and  delicately  introduced 
in  this  address,  as  to  have  even  escaped  the  notice  of  so  care- 
ful a  commentator  as  Dr.  Wendt,  it  is  woven  in  the  texture 
of  Paul's  words  and  thought. 

It  is  absurd  and  unfair  to  doubt  that  Luke  was  fully  con- 
scious of  this.  He  places  the  speech  at  the  beginning  of 
Paul's  work  among  the  Gentiles  as  a  typical  example  of  the 
way  in  which  Judaism  and  the  promises  of  God  were  made 
universal  by  him. 

The  Jews  as  a  body  did  not  perceive  the  deep-lying 
suggestiveness  of  Paul's  inclusion  of  the  Gentiles ;  but  the 
Gentiles  saw  it,  and  on  the  next  Sabbath  almost  the  whole  city 
flocked  to  the  Synagogue.  It  was  now  clearly  apparent  what 
interpretation  was  put  on  the  words  of  Paul.  Even  the 
Gentiles  who  had  not  previously  been  attracted  within  the 
circle  of  the  Synagogue  came  to  hear  the  new  message  of  a 
widened  Judaism.  The  teaching,  which  on  the  first  Sabbath 
had  been  allowed  to  pass  without  open  disapproval  and  had 
even  been  welcomed  by  many  of  the  Jews,  was  now  openly 
contradicted,  when  one  or  both  of  the  Apostles  addressed 
the  crowded  assembly.  The  Jews  of  Antioch  were  not  pre- 
pared to  admit  the  Gentiles  to  an  equality  with  themselves. 

No  explanation  is  given  in  the  oration  quoted  by  Luke 
of  the  way  in  which  this  equality  which  Paul  preached  was 
explained  and  justified  by  him.  The  equalisation  is  simply 
assumed  and  acted  upon.  "  You,"  throughout  the  speech, 
embraces  Jews  and  Gentiles.  "  We  "  in  xiii.  26  includes 
all  who  will.     But  one  cannot  suppose  that  the  entire  Gospel 


XII.    The  Approach  to  the  Gentiles         305 

was  explained  in  one  oration  to  an  audience  wholly  unpre- 
pared for  it.  The  aim  of  the  sermon  was  to  drive  home 
into  the  minds  of  the  audience  one  or  two  fundamental 
principles,  and  to  suggest  the  universality  of  the  Gospel ;  and 
the  subsequent  events  showed  that  this  part  of  the  message 
was  caught  with  avidity  by  the  hitherto  unprivileged  Gen- 
tiles in  the  audience.  The  oration  was  only  the  introduc- 
tion, not  the  completion,  of  a  course  of  instruction. 

This  consideration  shows  the  unreasonableness  of  Pro- 
fessor McGififert's  criticism  of  the  oration  ;  ^^  he  regards  it  as 
composed  by  Luke,  and  not  as  a  trustworthy  reproduction 
of  what  Paul  said.  He  points  out  that  in  xiii.  39,  "  where 
it  is  said  that  every  one  that  believeth  is  justified  from  all 
things  from,  which  ye  could  not  be  justified  by  the  law  of 
Moses^  a  conception  of  justification  is  expressed,  which,  if 
not  distinctly  un-Pauline,  nevertheless  falls  far  below  Paul's 
characteristic  and  controlling  idea  of  justification  as  the  state 
of  the  saved  man  who  is  completely  reconciled  to  God  and 
enjoys  peace  with  Him".  Dr.  McGiffert's  words  are  quite 
correct,  but  his  inference  that  Paul  could  not  have  made 
the  statement  is  incorrect.  This  statement  was  a  first  step 
towards  making  the  new  idea  intelligible  to  minds  wholly 
unprepared  for  understanding  the  full  Pauline  conception. 
The  able  modern  scholar  and  writer  sees  that  the  statement, 
though  "  not  un-Pauline,"  is  incompletely  Pauline.  But  that 
is  precisely  what  should  be  expected  in  a  preparatory  an- 
nouncement like  this.  The  teaching  of  freedom,  of  the 
lighter  yoke  and  the  easier  burden,  which  as  we  saw  already 
(Part  I.,  §  IV.)  is  the  most  characteristic  feature  in  the  letter 
to  the  Galatians,  is  clearly  yet  not  obtrusively  contained 
here. 

But,  when  Dr.   McGiffert  regards   "  the  forgiveness  of 

20. 


3o6  III.  Antioch 


sins  "  (xiii.  38)  as  sufficiently  un-Pauline  to  excite  suspicion, 
we  find  no  reality  in  his  criticism.  Even  if  the  words  were 
never  used  by  Paul  elsewhere,  it  is  mere  pedantry  to  regard 
the  idea  as  un-Pauline  ;  but  they  occur  (as  the  learned  critic 
mentions)  in  Ephesians  i,  7  and  Colossians  i,  14.  They  are  a 
simpler  and  less  philosophic  expression  of  a  process  which 
Paul  dwells  on  always,  but  as  a  rule  in  a  more  mystic  and 
more  transcendental  way — a  process  which  every  Christian 
preacher  must  in  some  form  or  other  always  dwell  on. 

The  occurrence  of  such  simpler,  as  one  might  say  pre- 
Pauline  or  preparatory-Pauline  expressions  at  the  climax 
of  the  address,  is  eminently  suitable  to  the  situation,  and 
strongly  confirms  the  character  of  this  oration  as  a  trust- 
worthy report  of  the  speech  actually  delivered  by  the  Apostle 
in  the  Galatian  Synagogue. 

It  is  needless  to  repeat  here  the  analysis  of  the  topics 
in  this  address  which  are  described  by  Paul  in  the  Epistle 
as  having  constituted  his  teaching  to  the  Galatians.  They 
are  treated  in  my  Historical  Commentary  on  Galatians^ 
pp.  399-401,  to  which  I  may  be  permitted  to  refer.  The 
common  topics  there  more  fully  described  are  : — 

(1)  The  history  of  the  Jewish  people  becomes  intelligible 
only  as  leading  onward  to  a  higher  development :  this  higher 
stage  came  in  "  the  fulness  of  time  "  (Gal.  iv.  4),  and  con- 
stituted the  climax  of  their  history,  when  God  fulfilled  His 
promise,  and  when  the  Jews  by  condemning  Jesus  fulfilled 
prophecy  (Acts  xiii.  27,  32  f.). 

(2)  The  promise  given  originally  to  the  Jews  cannot  be 
fulfilled  except  through  Christ.  Such  is  the  burden  of  the 
Epistle  and  of  the  address.  The  Law  cannot  save :  it  is 
incomplete  :  it  cannot  justify.  In  the  address  indeed  Paul 
does  not  actually  go  further  than  to  say  that  the  Law  cannot 


XII.    The  Approach  to  the  Gentiles         307 

justify  completely,  xiii.  39 ;  but  this  is  already  un-Jewish, 
and  suggests  much  more  than  it  actually  says.  But  through 
Christ  every  one  that  hath  faith  is  justified  (Acts  xiii.  23, 

32  f..  38  f.)- 

(3)  Christ  must  be  hanged  on  a  tree  and  be  accursed 
(Gal.  iii.  13,  Acts  xiii.  29). 

(4)  Christ  is  not  dead,  though  He  was  slain  (xiii.  30,  32  f., 

34  f-,  37). 

This  is  not  a  complete  outline  of  Paulinism,  but  it  is  a 
characteristic  sketch  preparatory  to  the  evangelising  of  an 
audience  which  knew  nothing  but  the  Law.  It  is  not  what 
a  later  writer  would  compose  as  a  presentation  of  Paulinism 
to  any  audience  ;  but  it  is  the  way  in  which,  one  cannot 
deny,  Paul  might  well  take  the  first  steps  to  introduce  his 
gospel  to  such  an  audience  as  this.  The  idea  of  liberty, 
which  is  so  prominent  in  the  Epistle,  could  not  be  suggested 
too  explicitly  at  this  stage  before  a  mixed  audience.  It 
belongs  to  the  further  ministration,  which  followed  xiii.  47. 

The  Received  Text  of  xiii.  42,  which  appears  in  the 
Authorised  Version,  "  when  the  Jews  were  gone  out  of  the 
Synagogue,  the  Gentiles  besought  that  these  words  might 
be  preached  to  them  the  next  Sabbath,"  is  wholly  unjustifiable. 
In  the  first  place  we  notice  the  mistranslation  of  the  first 
participle  {e^Lovrwv),  which  cannot  possibly  imply  that  the 
Jews  "  were  gone  out  of  the  Synagogue,"  but  only  that  they 
were  in  the  act  of  going  out  or  on  the  point  of  going  out. 
This  stage  is  antecedent  to  xiii.  43,  when  the  Synagogue  had 
broken  up  and  the  audience  had  been  dismissed.  Secondly, 
this  reading  misses  the  delicacy  of  the  situation,  exagger- 
ates the  share  attributed  to  the  Gentiles  in  the  action,  and 
gives  a  quite  irrational  picture  of  the  situation.  We  cannot 
possibly  admit  that  the  Jews  could  depart  first  from  the 


3o8  III.  Antioch 


Synagogue  and  leave  the  Gentiles  alone  with  Paul  in  it. 
Even  with  a  correct  translation,  "  while  the  Jews  were  going 
out  of  the  Synagogue,"  the  situation  as  described  remains 
almost  the  same,  for  the  Jews  are  still  represented  as  begin- 
ning to  go  out  and  leaving  the  Gentiles  gathered  round  Paul 
and  Barnabas;  and,  moreover,  this  reading  anticipates  the 
situation  as  it  developed  in  the  ensuing  week,  whereas  the 
Jews  did  not  understand  its  nature  until  the  following 
Sabbath.  Thirdly,  the  evidence  of  the  manuscripts  is  over- 
whelming and  indubitable. 

It  is  gathered  from  xiii.  42  by  some  commentators  that 
Paul  and  Barnabas  went  out  beforehand  ^^  and  afterwards 
the  Synagogue  was  dismissed.  But  the  words  "  as  they  were 
going  out,"  may  very  well  be  interpreted  as  referring  to  the 
time  occupied  in  the  gradual  departure  of  a  large  audience. 
During  the  breaking  up  of  the  audience  the  hearers  in 
general  asked  that  the  address  might  be  repeated,  a  request 
with  which  (as  we  must  understand)  the  Rulers  complied. 
After  the  breaking  up  occurred  the  scene  described  in  the 
following  verse. 

§  XIII.    The  Door  of  the  Gentiles. 

This  turning  away  from  the  Jews  to  address  the  Gentiles 
directly  and  alone  was  a  very  important  step  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  Pauline  evangelisation.  That  it  was  made  now 
for  the  first  time  seems  certain.  It  is  the  method  of  Luke  to 
emphasise  the  great  stages  in  the  development  of  the  Church ; 
and  the  attention  which  he  devotes  to  this  address  would 
alone  be  a  sufficient  proof  that  it  marked  a  decisive  step  in 
advance.  Moreover,  on  their  return  to  Syrian  Antioch,  Paul 
and  Barnabas  reported  about  their  journey  and  its  results ; 
and  the  fact  on  which  they  laid  special  stress  was  that  God 


XIII.    The  Door  of  the  Gentiles  309 

"had  opened  a  door  of  faith  to  the  Gentiles"  during  this 
journey. 

The  address  in  the  Synagogue  was  not  the  opening  of  the 
door :  it  was  only  a  preliminary  that  led  up  to  that  decisive 
step.  It  is  only  in  xiii.  46  that  the  step  is  actually  described. 
When  Paul  took  this  step,  the  door  was  opened  for  the 
Gentiles  to  enter  direct  into  the  Church  (instead  of  through 
the  Synagogue). '•^  Luke,  evidently,  understood  that  it  had  not 
been  opened  in  Cyprus,  for  there  Paul  and  Barnabas  spoke 
only  in  the  Synagogues,  Barnabas,  not  Paul,  was  the  leader, 
and  Paul  still  appeared  in  his  Hebrew  character  under  the 
name  of  Saul.  It  had  not  been  op^n  in  Syrian  Antioch, 
for  there  also  the  leader  was  Barnabas,  and  Paul  appeared 
only  as  the  Hebrew  Saul  in  a  subordinate  position  ;  and  no 
reasonable  doubt  can  exist  that  the  Christian  teaching  in 
Syrian  Antioch  reached  the  Gentiles  through  the  Synagogue 
and  not  direct :  had  the  door  stood  open  there  already,  it 
would  not  have  been  necessary  or  correct  for  Paul  and 
Barnabas  to  report  that  God  had  opened  a  door  to  the 
Gentiles  on  the  journey. 

Can  we  gather  from  the  general  situation  any  information 
to  explain  how  it  was  that  Paul  made  such  a  distinct  step 
forward  in  his  outlook  and  method  at  this  time  ?  It  is  quite 
natural  that  the  idea  of  the  gospel  of  the  Gentiles,  deep- 
seated  in  his  mind,  should  gradually  translate  itself  into 
action,  and  grow  stronger  and  more  commanding  as  it  be- 
comes more  active.  That  this  must  have  been  so  lies  in  the 
nature  of  the  case ;  and  Luke's  narrative  marks  the  gradual 
development  very  clearly.  It  was  never  part  of  this  author's 
method  formally  to  state  reasons  and  estimate  causes ;  but 
he  certainly  conceived  that  Paul's  missionary  aims  gradually 
expanded  and  developed,  and  he   certainly   modelled   his 


3IO  III.   Antioch 


history  so  as  to  exhibit  the  steps  by  which  this  develop- 
ment took  place  :  no  one  has  any  doubt  as  to  this  intention 
on  the  part  of  the  author  of  Acts :  the  only  doubt  is  as 
to  his  competence  and  trustworthiness  in  carrying  out  his 
intention. 

What,  then,  was  it  that  led  Paul  to  take  this  large  and 
sudden  step  onwards  in  his  course  at  the  very  beginning  of 
his  Galatian  mission  ?  The  answer  to  this  question  must  be 
to  a  great  extent  conjectural  and  dependent  on  a  more  or 
less  subjective  estimate  of  the  preceding  conditions.  The 
sole  authority  is  Luke  ;  and  we  have  to  try  to  divine  the 
purpose  in  his  mind,  prompting  his  choice  and  his  emphasis  ; 
and  this  attempt  must  inevitably  be  conditioned  by  personal 
judgment  about  Luke's  character  as  a  historian. 

In  the  first  place  we  cannot  but  notice  that  this  event 
comes  shortly  after  the  scene  in  Paphos,  where  Paul  for  the 
first  time  became  the  leader.  At  Paphos  also  he  ceases  to 
be  conceived  by  Luke  as  a  mere  Jew  among  Jews;  and 
the  change  in  his  name  marks  a  change  in  method  and  out- 
look. The  first  missionary  action  which  Luke  mentions  after 
this  change  was  the  speech  in  the  Antiochian  Synagogue,  for 
the  residence  in  Pamphylia  had  been  rendered  abortive  by 
the  illness,  which  was  still  affecting  him  when  he  spoke  in 
the  Antiochian  Synagogue,  but  which  the  Galatians  over- 
looked in  their  enthusiastic  reception.  We  must  understand 
that  Luke  marks  the  three  steps  in  the  process  of  opening 
of  the  door  as  (i)  the  scene  in  Paphos,  (2)  the  first  Galatian 
sermon  addressing  Greeks  and  Jews  as  equal,  (3)  the  turning 
away  from  the  Jews  to  address  the  Gentiles  directly  and  out- 
side of  the  Synagogue. 

In  the  second  place,  Paul  was  now  entering  a  new  country, 
where  the  conditions  of  life  and  the  relation  of  Jews  to 


XIII.    The  Door  of  the  Gentiles  311 

Gentiles  were  probably  different  from  those  to  which  he  was 
accustomed.  An  orator  like  him  must  have  been  sensitive 
to  the  new  conditions  and  guided  almost  unconsciously  by 
them.  There  was  something  in  the  moral  atmosphere  of 
the  Synagogue  at  Antioch  that  led  him  on  to  the  issue  of 
addressing  the  Gentiles  as  "  Brethren  "  equally  with  the  Jews, 
and  exhibiting  to  them  the  Gospel  ("  placarding  it  before 
them,"  as  in  Gal.  iii.  i)  as  their  own.  Can  we  determine 
what  was  this  electric  quality  to  which  Paul  was  sensitive  ? 
Surely,  it  is  to  be  connected  with  the  friendly  relations  of 
Jew  and  Gentile.  We  should  not  expect  that  in  an  ordinary 
Graeco-Roman  city,  almost  the  whole  population  would 
gather  to  hear  a  Jew  preach  to  them  in  the  atmosphere  of  a 
Synagogue :  a  certain  degree  of  rhetorical  stress  and  ex- 
aggeration may  perhaps  be  felt  in  the  expression ;  but  one 
cannot  doubt  that  a  large  and  impressive  concourse  of 
citizens  to  the  Synagogue  took  place  on  the  second  Sabbath. 
What  was  it  that  made  the  Antiochians  gather  in  such  a  vast 
crowd  ?  That  they  should  do  so  must  be  regarded  as  on  a 
parallel  with  the  general  sympathy  of  spirit  that  existed  be- 
tween Anatolians  and  Jews.  This  sympathy  I  have  else- 
where described.^''  The  ancient  people  of  Phrygia  was  the 
ground-stock  into  which  both  the  old  conquering  tribes  of 
Phryges  or  Bryges  from  Europe  and  the  Magnesian  colonists 
of  the  third  century  melted  and  were  absorbed:  it  had 
marked  affinity  with  the  Semitic  peoples.  In  the  character 
of  this  ground-stock  lies  the  explanation,  both  why  Paul 
now  was  drawn  on  to  address  them  so  sympathetically  in 
his  first  speech,  and  why  later  they  attempted  to  reconcile 
his  teaching  with  a  strict  and  complete  obedience  to  the 
Jewish  Law  (an  attempt  which  elicited  the  Epistle  to  the 
Galatians).     Only  such  an  affinity  could  render  it  possible 


312  III.  Antioch 


that  almost  the  whole  population  crowded  to  hear  the  Jewish 
stranger  preach  his  message  to  themselves. 

A  possible  objection  that  may  suggest  itself  on  a  hasty- 
view  may  here  be  alluded  to.  We  have  laid  much  stress  on 
the  Hellenised  character  of  Pisidian  Antioch,  and  on  its  diver- 
sity from  the  purely  Anatolian  character  of  the  surrounding 
population  ;  and  yet  now  we  are  laying  stress  on  the  funda- 
mentally Anatolian  spirit  of  the  Antiochians.  It  may  be 
thought  that  these  are  inconsistent  opinions.  There  is,  how- 
ever, no  real  inconsistency  between  them,  and  the  reader  who 
detects  inconsistency  fails  to  conceive  rightly  the  Graeco- 
Oriental  character  in  those  Seleucid  colonies  of  Phrygia.  In 
them  Hellenic  education  adapted  itself  to  Oriental  peoples, 
and  in  doing  so  was  profoundly  modified  in  spirit.  Each  of 
those  cities  was  an  experiment  in  the  amalgamation  of  the 
Oriental  and  the  Western.  Therein  lies  their  deep  interest. 
They  were  attempting  to  do,  and  on  the  whole  with  remark- 
able success,  what  must  be  achieved  on  a  wider  scale  at  the 
present  day  if  the  peace  of  the  world  is  to  be  maintained  and 
progress  to  be  made.  The  warfare  and  antagonism  between 
Eastern  and  European  has  to  be  changed  for  peaceful  inter- 
penetration,  which  will  result  not  in  domination  of  the  one 
over  the  other,  but  in  harmonious  development  of  a  recon- 
ciled common  civilisation,  in  which  each  side  contributes 
what  the  other  lacks  (see  Part  I.,  §  V.,  and  Letters  to  the  Seven 
Churches^  Preface). 

Accordingly,  the  mass  of  the  population  of  Antioch  was 
Hellenic  or  Hellenised  :  it  was  not,  however,  Greek,  but 
Graeco-Oriental.  Hellenism  is  rather  an  educational  than 
a  racial  fact.  Even  the  Magnesians  who  had  colonised  An- 
tioch were  not  a  Greek  people  racially ;  they  came  from  a 
Hellenised  city  of  Anatolia,  in  which  the  mixture  of  Greek 


XIII.    The  Door  of  the  Geiitiles  3 1 3 

blood  can  have  been  only  slight.  It  was  precisely  in  those 
GrsECO-Oriental  cities  that  the  Jews  found  themselves  most 
at  home.  In  the  strictly  Greek  cities  of  European  Greece 
the  Jews  seem  never  to  have  been  able  to  effect  such  an 
accommodation  with  their  Greek  neighbours. 

The  appeal  which  Paul  made  to  the  non-Jewish  Anti- 
ochian  Galatians  was  evidently  addressed  mainly  to  the  older 
population,  the  Hellenized  Anatolian,  not  the  Roman,  section 
of  the  city.  Consideration  of  the  circumstances  will  bring 
this  out  clearly. 

Not  the  whole  city  had  come  to  hear  Paul.  There  was 
a  class  that  did  not  come ;  and  it  is  easy  to  see  what  class 
it  was  that  was  not  interested.  It  was  the  class  which 
included  the  women  of  rank  to  whom  the  Jews  soon  after 
had  recourse  in  order  to  excite  persecution  against  Paul. 
That  is  to  say,  it  was  the  Roman  colonists,  the  local  aristo- 
cracy. They  were  not  drawn  so  much  to  the  Synagogue. 
An  address  in  Greek  would  not  be  so  attractive  to  them,  for 
Greek  had  not  yet  become  their  home  language,  as  it  did 
two  centuries  later  (see  §  VIII.).  They  had  not  the  same 
affinity  of  spirit  with  the  Semites  as  the  older  population 
had.  An  aristocracy  is,  as  a  rule,  not  so  easily  and  quickly 
affected  by  missionary  influence  as  the  humbler  classes  are. 
(See  also  p.  5 II.) 

This  class,  which  did  not  come  to  the  Synagogue  in  an}' 
great  numbers,  held  the  reins  of  government ;  it  was  the 
privileged  burgher  class.  To  it  the  Jews  went  for  help, 
moving  it  through  the  women  who  belonged  to  it. 

In  conclusion  we  cannot  but  observe  that  the  narrative  of 
Acts  implies  a  very  marked  concord  and  friendly  relation 
between  the  Jews  and  the  other  two  chief  sections  of  the 
Antiochian  people.     The  mass  of  the  population  gathers  in 


314  III.   Antioch 


the  Synagogue.  The  governing  coloni  are  easily  induced  by 
the  Jews  to  act  against  Paul  and  Barnabas,  and  it  can  hardly 
be  doubted  that  the  charge  against  the  strangers  was  that 
they  had  disturbed  the  harmony  of  the  State.  This  picture 
of  the  Roman  Colonia  is  very  favourable,  and  is  quite  in  ac- 
cordance with  all  that  has  been  gathered  from  the  extra- 
Biblical  evidence. 


PART  IV. 
ICONIUM. 


Fio.  27. — The  River-God  Anthios  on  a  coin  of  Antiochia  Colonia 
(see  p.  248  f.). 


ICONIUM. 

§  I.    Natural  and  National  Character. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  find  two  cities  more  strikingly 
similar  in  general  situation  than  Iconium  and  Damascus, 
Both  lie  on  the  level  plateau,  high  above  sea  level  (Iconium 
3,370,  Damascus  about  2,300  leet).  Both  are  sheltered  oil 
the  west  by  lofty  mountains,  or,  as  one  might  better  say,  a 
mountainous  region  :  Anti-Lebanon  in  one  case,  the  Phrygo- 
Pisidian  mountain-land  of  the  Orondeis  in  the  other,  each 
with  peaks  of  more  than  5,000  feet  in  height,  rise  from  the 
level  plain  three  or  four  miles  west  of  the  city.  From  the 
mountains,  in  each  case,  flows  down  a  stream  right  into 
the  city,  making  the  land  around  into  a  great  garden,  green 
with  trees,  rich  in  produce;  but  the  water  has  no  outlet 
and  is  soon  dissipated  in  the  soil  of  the  level  plains  which 
stretch  away  to  the  east  of  both  cities,  as  far  as  the  eye  can 
see.  Yet  the  scenery  to  the  east  is  not  monotonous  in  the 
outlook,  for  mountains  rising  here  and  there  like  islands  give 
character  and  variety  to  the  view.     (Map,  p.  384.) 

The  mountains  on  the  western  side  are  more  varied  in 
outline  at  Iconium  than  they  are  at  Damascus.  The  flat 
table-top  of  Loras-Dagh  (about  6,000  feet)  to  the  west,  the 
twin  cones  of  St.  Philip  and  St.  Thekla  (about  5,200  feet) 
to  the  north-west,  a  larger  rounded  mountain  which  rises 
over  Zizima  and  Ladik  far  up  to  the  north,  all  arrest  the  eye 
and  the  attention.     The  Christian  form  of  the  local  beliefs 

(317) 


31 8  IV.   Iconium 


connected  with  the  hills  of  St.  Philip  (Takali-Dagh,  the 
Arab  Dakalias)  and  St.  Thekla  is  described  in  §  X. ;  and 
the  facts  there  mentioned  suggest  that  all  these  striking 
features  of  the  landscape  had  their  religious  features.   (PI.  XI.) 

Iconium  and  Damascus  alike  were  unsuited  for  defence, 
and  utterly  devoid  of  military  strength,  according  to  ancient 
methods  of  warfare.  They  are  cities  of  peace,  centres  of 
commerce  and  agriculture  and  wealth,  marked  out  by  their 
natural  character  for  historical  and  political  importance 
throughout  all  time.  Water  is  scarce  on  those  arid  plateaus, 
and  sites  which  had  an  abundant,  ever-flowing,  natural 
supply  of  water,  formed  centres  of  human  life  and  history 
from  the  beginning  of  organised  society.  Their  import- 
ance, therefore,  rested  on  a  sure  foundation.  No  political 
change  could  destroy  them,  though  oppressive  or  inefficient 
government  might  temporarily  diminish  their  wealth  and 
prosperity. 

Damascus  has  filled  a  greater  place  before  the  eyes  of  the 
world  than  Iconium ;  it  stands  pre-eminent  in  historical 
and  romantic  interest,  because  it  was  close  to  the  scene  of 
events  and  peoples  greater  in  ancient  history.  In  fame  it 
surpasses  Iconium  as  much  as  its  river  Abana  surpasses  in 
the  volume  of  water  that  it  carries  the  stream  which  gives 
fertility  and  growth  to  the  gardens  of  Iconium,  and  which 
exhausts  itself  at  the  edge  of  the  city.  Iconium  was  at 
least  as  important  in  relation  to  its  neighbouring  towns 
and  tribes  as  Damascus ;  but  Damascus  lay  nearer  the  main 
centres  of  historic  evolution,  while  we  can  only  dimly  con- 
jecture that  Asia  Minor  was  more  important  in  the  world's 
history  before  1 500  B.C.  than  it  has  been  since,  and  in  that 
early  period  Iconium  is  to  us  only  a  legend,  hardly  even  a 
name. 


I,   Natural  and  National  Character        319 


Only  at  one  period  in  later  history  has  Iconium  rivalled 
the  political  importance  as  a  governing  city  that  has  several 
times  belonged  to  Damascus.  In  the  Seljuk  period,  from 
the  end  of  the  eleventh  century  to  the  fourteenth,  Iconium 
or  Konia  was  the  capital  of  the  Seljuk  empire  of  Roum. 
The  Sultans  of  Konia  waged  war  on  equal  terms  with  the 
Emperors  of  Constantinople :  they  held  great  part  of  Asia 
Minor,  and  for  a  time  Nicaea  itself  was  one  of  their  garrison 
cities,  while  their  armies  swept  in  repeated  raids  down  to 
the  Aegean  Sea.  The  city  was  then  made  so  splendid  with 
beautiful  buildings,  palace,  mosques  and  mausolea,  that  the 
proverb  arose  and  lasted  long  among  the  Turks,  "  See  all  the 
world  ;  but  see  Konia". 

Both  Iconium  and  Damascus  are,  therefore,  necessarily 
and  inevitably  of  immemorial  antiquity.  However  far  back 
in  history  one  can  penetrate,  there  one  finds  standing  out 
clearly  in  the  dimness  of  primitive  history  or  legend  the 
importance  of  those  two  great  cities.  Damascus  has  always 
been  famous  as  the  oldest  city  in  the  world.  But  Iconium, 
though  less  famous,  was  as  old  as  Damascus,  for  both  went 
back  to  the  beginning  of  history.  At  Iconium  tradition 
recorded  the  fame  of  King  Nannakos  (or  Annakos),  who 
reigned  before  the  Flood,  and  lived  to  the  age  of  300  years. 
Learning  from  an  oracle  that,  when  he  died,  all  men  should 
perish,  he  convoked  all  people  to  the  temple,  and  "  made 
supplication  with  tears,"  and  his  Phrygian  subjects  mourned 
so  vehemently  that  "  the  weeping  in  the  time  of  Nannakos" 
became  a  proverb  even  among  the  Greeks.  Herondas  of 
Cos  about  270  B.C.  makes  one  of  his  characters,  speaking 
in  the  common  conversational  language  of  lower  middle-class 
society  in  a  Greek  town,  quote  this  proverb. 

Soon  after  "  the  weeping  of  Nannakos  "  came  the  Flood 


320  IV.   Iconium 


in  which  all  men  perished.  When  the  earth  dried  again 
after  the  Flood,  Jupiter  bade  Prometheus  and  Athena  make 
images  {eikones)  of  mud,  and  he  caused  the  winds  to  breathe 
on  the  images,  and  they  became  living.  Thus  Iconium 
was  re-peopled  immediately  after  the  Flood,  and  derived  its 
name  from  the  eikones.  The  last  is  a  Greek  addition  ;  in 
this  Phrygian  legend,  evidently,  the  city  bore  the  same 
name  before  the  Flood  as  after. 

Nannakos  gave  origin  to  other  proverbs.  "  More  ancient 
than  Nannakos,"  "  from  Nannakos,"  "  in  the  time  of  Nan- 
nakos," and  similar  phrases,  were  widely  used  to  describe 
things  of  great  age  and  survivals  of  primitive  antiquity. 
The  name  of  the  old  Phrygian  king  had  passed  into  the 
common  stock  of  familiar  Greek  tradition  at  some  early  time 
in  a  way  unknown  to  us. 

Attempts  have  been  made  to  show  that  the  story  of 
Nannakos  was  borrowed  from  Jewish  tradition  and  record, 
and  was  not  a  native  Iconian  legend.^  It  is  assumed  in 
such  attempts  that  the  form  Annakos  gives  the  original 
and  correct  name,  and  that  it  is  the  Biblical  Hanokh,  or 
Enoch ;  the  legend  of  a  flood  which  destroyed  the  Phrygian 
world  at  the  death  of  Annakos  is  explained  as  a  version  of 
the  tale  recorded  in  Genesis  vi.-ix.  But  this  theory  cannot 
be  accepted.  The  correct  name  is  certainly  Nannakos,  which 
appears  in  all  authorities  except  Stephanus  (in  whose  text 
Annakos  is  probably  a  mere  error) ;  Nannakos  is  a  name 
known  in  Asia  Minor,  and  the  cognate  names,  Nannas, 
Nannasos,  etc.,  are  common  in  the  country  round  Iconium. 
The  frequent  and  varied  forms  of  proverb  connected  with 
the  name  furnish  strong  proof  that  the  legend  was  one  of 
native  origin,  and  not  borrowed  from  the  Bible.  The  only 
way  in  which  a  Biblical  origin  could  be  explained  is  through 


Natural  and  National  Character         321 


the  influence  of  the  Jewish  colonists  in  Ly.caonia  and  Phrygia. 
But  those  Jewish  colonies  belong  to  the  Selcucid  times; 
they  began  under  Seleucus  Nikator  shortly  before  281.  It 
is  unlikely  that  they  could  ever  have  acquired  such  deep- 
rooted  importance  as  to  influence  popular  Greek  expression 
in  the  degree  which  those  proverbs  imply,  and  certainly  they 
could  not  do  so  before  the  great  foundations  made  by 
Antiochus  the  Great,  about  215-200  B.C.'^  The  Jews  of 
Phrygia  were  undoubtedly  wealthy,  influential,  and  ener- 
getic, and  they  strongly  affected  the  religious  ideas  of 
thoughtful  men,  as  the  writer  has  tried  to  describe  else- 
where^; but  their  influence  was  not  of  the  kind  that  was 
likely  to  mould  popular  language  ;  rather  they  were  disliked 
and  feared  by  the  vulgar.  Moreover,  it  was  in  the  Roman 
more  than  in  the  Greek  period  that  they  became  so  influ- 
ential. Now  the  proverbial  use  of  the  story  of  Nannakos 
was  firmly  rooted  on  the  west  coast  of  Asia  Minor  when 
Herondas  was  writing  about  270-260  B.C.,  and  it  seems 
impossible  to  account  for  this  except  through  the  influence 
of  an  ancient  Phrygian  tradition  familiarly  known  to  the 
Greeks  from  a  very  early  time. 

The  story  of  Nannakos,  then,  although  only  a  fragment 
of  it  has  been  preserved,  belongs  to  native  Iconian  tradition, 
and  furnishes  evidence  of  a  primitive  Phrygian  belief  in  a 
deluge ;  though  it  may  be  freely  admitted  that  the  stor}',  as 
told  by  Suidas,  has  probably  been  coloured  by  the  Biblical 
narrative,  which  indubitably  afl"ected  Phrygian  legends  in 
later  time. 

The  precise  form  of  the  Iconian  legend  is  irrecoverable, 
but  it  was  evidently  markedly  diff"erent  from  the  Biblical 
story.  The  coming  of  some  disaster  was  predicted  to  the 
people,  and  their  vehement  mourning  over  the  impending 


21 


32  2  IV.  Tconium 


catastrophe  was  the  feature  that  most  deeply  impressed  the 
Greek  mind.  Their  king,  Nannakos,  in  spite  of  his  tearful 
supplications,  by  which  evidently  he  tried  to  propitiate  the 
god  and  avert  the  Deluge,  seems  to  have  perished  with  his 
people,  and  the  land  was  repeopled  by  Divine  intervention. 

The  primitive  Phrygian  legend  can  be  traced  also  at 
Apameia-Celaenae  in  a  non-Biblical  form.'*  It  was  there 
connected  with  the  remarkable  natural  phenomena  of  the 
locality,  the  underground  waters ;  and  it  took  the  form  that 
Divine  intervention  saved  the  city  from  being  entirely  engulfed 
after  many  had  perished.  This  native  legend  at  Celaenae 
(of  which  the  details  are  not  preserved)  was  modified  by 
being  blended  with  the  Biblical  story,  as  appears  on  the 
coins  with  the  name  and  type  of  Noah  and  the  Ark  ;  but 
there  is  no  reason  to  think  that  this  occurred  until  the  Roman 
period  ;  the  Noah  coins  are  of  the  third  century  after  Christ. 
Here  also  the  Jewish  influence  was  slow  and  late  in  affecting 
popular  thought,  and  the  analogy  constitutes  an  additional 
argument  that  Nannakos  could  not  be  borrowed  from  Jewish 
sources.  In  both  cases  the  earlier  allusions  reveal  a  legend 
unlike  the  Biblical  form,  and  the  Biblical  analogies  are 
stronger  in  the  later  references. 

It  seems  probable  that  the  Iconian  form  of  the  legend 
was,  like  the  Apamean,  adapted  to  local  circumstances. 
Further  exploration  is  needed  to  give  certainty,  but  there 
is  every  probability  that  the  plain  of  Iconium  was  irrigated 
by  water  coming  from  the  large  lake,  Trogitis,  about  forty- 
five  miles  in  an  air-line  to  the  south-west,  separated  from 
Iconium  by  the  high  Orondian  mountain  country.  The 
evidence  for  this  must  be  stated  here. 

A  scheme  has  been  under  consideration  recently  for  bring- 
ing the  water  of  this  lake  to  irrigate  the  plain.     In  1882 


I.   Natural  and  National  Character         323 

the  writer  heard  Said  Pasha,  governor  of  the  Konia  Vilayet, 

speak  of  the  plan  and  the  surveys  which  he  had  caused  to  be 

made  in  preparation  for  it ;  and  the  scheme  has  been  revived 

in  the  last  few  years  as  a  private  enterprise  to  be  carried  out 

by  a  European  company.^     It  was  stated  on  good  authority 

to  the  writer  in  1905  that  the  engineers,  who  reported  on  the 

practicability  of  the  scheme,  found  that  it  could  be  carried 

out   at    moderate  expenditure,   because  an   ancient   cutting 

which  had  formerly  carried  the  water  through  the  mountains 

at  the  only  difficult  point,   still   exists,   and  can  readily  be 

cleared  again."     That  a  channel  exists  by  which  the  water  of 

lake  Trogitis  can  flow  into  the  Konia  plain,  has  long  been 

known   to    the    archaeological    travellers    in   Lycaonia;    but, 

until  I  was  informed  by  an  excellent  authority  that  it  was 

artificial,  I  had  been  under  the  impression  that  it  was  purely 

natural.      It  discharges  into  the  river  Tcharshamba,  which 

flows  across  the  plain  of  Konia  about  twenty-four  miles  south 

of  the  city.     This  river  is  described  by  the  Arab  geographer 

Ibn  Khordadhbeh   in   the   ninth   century  under   the  name 

of  Nahr-el-Ahsa,  River  of  Subterranean  Waters,^  and  the 

name  seems  to  prove  that  the  connection  with  the  lake  was 

still  open  at  that  time.     In  more  recent   time  the  channel 

has  been  allowed  to  become  blocked  up,  and  the  connection 

with  the  lake  has  ceased,  except  when  the  water  of  Trogitis 

(which  varies  greatly  in  volume)  is   very  high.      Professor 

Sterrett,  in  the  account  of  his  exploration  of  this  district,^ 

reports  that  the  water  was  flowing  from  the  lake  through  the 

channel  in  1885,  but  he  unfortunately  did  not  follow  its  course. 

In  May,  1905,  the  river  was  carrying  a  large  body  of  water 

into  the  plain  of  Konia,  but  I  was  assured  that  no  connection 

with   the  lake  was  open,  and  that  the  water  came  entirely 

from  the  Isaurian  mountains,  which  drain  into  this  river. 


IV.   Iconium 


Hearing  at  Konia,  in  May,  1905,  the  report  about  the 
ancient  cutting,  I  perceived  at  once  that  if  such  a  great 
engineering  work  existed,  it  was  likely  to  have  affected 
Iconian  legend  ;  and  being  hopeful  also  of  finding  evidence 
of  the  period  when  it  was  executed,  I  went  to  investigate ; 
but  after  two  days,  it  became  evident  that  more  time  than 
was  at  my  disposal  would  be  necessary,  and  I  had  to  abandon 
I  he  quest.  But,  whether  the  channel  was  wholly  natural  or 
in  part  artificial,  there  is  every  probability  that  in  ancient 
times  the  course  of  the  water  was  kept  clear,  and  that  the 
plain  of  Iconium  was  dependent  for  its  fertility  on  this  water 
supply.  Strabo  contrasts  the  fertility  of  the  Iconian  plain 
with  the  barrenness  of  northern  and  eastern  Lycaonia ;  and 
the  reason  for  the  difference  lies  in  the  water  supply.  The 
soil  of  those  Lycaonian  plains  is,  as  a  rule,  very  fertile,  but 
the  productiveness  depends  on  the  supply  of  water  by  human 
agency. 

The  river  Tcharshamba  sometimes  brings  down  in  flood  a 
large  body  of  water  from  the  Isaurian  mountains.  Moreover, 
the  lake  Trogitis  varies  greatly  in  level,  and  sometimes  rises 
so  high  as  to  cover  a  considerable  extent  of  country  which  in 
ordinary  years  is  cultivated ;  and,  when  this  is  the  case,  as 
has  often  been  stated  to  me  by  natives  of  the  district,  its 
waters  run  into  the  Tcharshamba  Su.  The  statements  must, 
I  think,  be  accepted,  though  I  cannot  vouch  for  the  facts 
from  personal  observation.  The  river,  which  in  most  years 
carries  a  fair  body  of  water,  has  no  outlet.  It  pours  its  water 
into  the  plain  of  Konia,  to  stagnate  and  evaporate  there. 
Every  spring  the  river  forms  extensive  inundations  in  the 
region  on  the  north-west  and  north  of  the  Kara-Dagh ;  and 
these  greatly  impede  travel  in  modem  times  from  Konia  to 
Barata  in  the  northern  skirts  of  Kara-Dagh  and   beyond 


I.   Natural  and  National  Character        325 

that  to  Cybistra  and  the  Cilician  Gates,  making  the  most 
direct  road  impassable.  On  exceptional  occasions,  when  the 
river  is  very  high,  the  water  extends  far  to  the  north,  and 
covers  even  the  road  from  Konia  to  Kara-Bunar.  In  June, 
1 891,  when  travelling  along  that  road,  my  wife  and  I  had  to 
make  a  det(jur  to  the  north ;  and  even  then  our  horses  waded 
for  some  miles  through  deep  water,  which  covered  the  level 
plain  like  an  inundation. 

Such  a  state  of  the  country  and  the  waters  interrupts  com- 
munication, blocks  roads,  and  renders  a  very  large  tract  ot' 
flooded  land  permanently  incapable  of  cultivation,  while  the 
rest  of  the  plain  (except  where  the  waters  flowing  from  the 
Orondian  mountain  region  are  diffused)  suffers  from  lack  of 
moisture;  and  is  dependent  entirely  on  rainfall  to  produce 
light  crops.  The  water  is  near,  but  it  needs  the  liand  of 
man  to  unite  it  to  the  dry  soil  by  irrigation. 

This  was  the  original  and  the  natural  condition  of  the 
country ;  and  the  improvement  of  the  Iconian  plain  by  con- 
ducting the  water  over  it  and  preventing  it  from  stagnating 
in  marshes  was  a  great  work,  requiring  much  skill,  know- 
ledge, patience  and  labour,  one  of  those  great  engineering 
achievements  on  which  were  built  up  the  prosperity  and 
wealth  of  the  Mediterranean  lands  :  see  Part  I.,  §  III.  Such 
works  were  attributed  to  the  god  ;  and  from  the  religious 
belief  originated,  as  usual,  a  growth  of  mythology  and  popular 
legend. 

We  conclude,  then,  that  a  religious  myth  was  attached  to 
the  irrigation  of  the  Iconian  plain.  It  was  through  Divine 
helping  power  that  the  water  was  not  a  destructive  deluge, 
as  it  once  had  been.  The  gods  themselves  saved  the  land 
and  the  people  whom  they  had  made,  moderating  an  ever- 
present  danger   of  flood   into  a  beneficent   irrigation.     We 


326  IV.   Iconium 

find  traces  of  similar  legends  wherever  in  Asia  Minor  any 
remarkable  water  supply  exists,  as  at  Apameia-Celaenae  or 
in  the  valley  of  Colossae.^ 

The  form  which  the  Deluge-story  took  at  Iconium  is 
adapted  to  bring  into  strong  relief  the  great  antiquity  of 
the  city.  The  Iconians  prided  themselves  on  their  ancient 
origin  :  their  city  was  the  first  founded  afler  the  Flood,  and 
it  had  been  great  before  the  Flood  ;  the  belief  that  Phr3^gian 
was  the  primitive  language  of  mankind — a  belief  which  was 
proved  to  be  true  by  a  scientific  experiment  conducted  on 
the  order  of  the  Egyptian  king  Psammetichus,  who  found 
that  infants  brought  up  out  of  hearing  of  human  speech 
spoke  the  Phrygian  language — was  probably  shared  by 
them.  It  was  evidently  through  this  pride  in  their  antiquity 
that  some  tradition  of  their  Phrygian  origin  was  preserved. 
Most  of  those  Hellenised  cities  of  Asia  Minor  claimed  to 
have  a  Greek  origin,  and  invented  legends  to  connect  them- 
selves with  Greek  history  and  mythology.  In  this  legend 
the  Iconians  claimed  to  be  pre-Greek,  the  ancient  city,  the 
beginning  of  history. 

There  was,  however,  another  Iconian  legend,  which  at- 
tributed a  Greek  origin  to  the  city.  It  is  recorded  in  such 
confused  and  self-contradictory  fashion  by  late  Byzantine 
authorities  (the  Paschal  Chronicle,  Cedrenus,  and  Malalas), 
that  one  would  be  tempted  to  set  it  aside  as  mere  scholastic 
trifling,  if  it  were  not  proved  by  the  Iconian  coins  to  be  the 
accepted  legend  in  the  city  during  the  Greek  and  the  Roman 
period.  The  Nannakos  legend  throws  no  light  on,  and  re- 
ceives none  from,  the  coinage  of  the  city ;  but  the  tale  told 
so  badly  in  the  Paschal  Chronicle,  Malalas,  and  Cedrenus, 
stands  in  the  closest  relation  to  the  coins,  which  form  the 
surest  indication  of  the  current  views  in  Iconium. 


I.   Natural  and  National  Character         327 

We  shall,  for  brevity's  sake,  relate  this  Greek  legend  only 
in  the  form  that  best  suits  the  coinage,  tacitly  omitting  all 
the  variations  that  are  mixed  up  in  the  three  versions. 
Perseus  came  to  Lycaonia,  and  vanquished  the  opposition  of 
the  people  by  the  power  of  the  Gorgoneion,  which  turned 
his  enemies  to  stone.  He  then  made  a  village  called 
Amandra  into  a  Greek  city,  and  called  it  Iconium  from  the 
eikon  or  image  of  the  Gorgon,  which  he  received  there 
before  the  victory.  This  seems  to  point  to  Divine  help 
granted  to  him  before  the  battle  began.  He  erected  in 
front  of  the  new  city  a  statue  representing  himself  holding 
up  the  Gorgon's  head  ;  and  this  statue  (the  authorities  say) 
is  standing  there  to  the  present  day.  The  coins  show  us 
the  same  statue  which  these  authorities  mention,  and  which 
was  doubtless  an  ornament  of  the  city ;  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  it  was  a  Hellenistic  work  modelled  after  the 
famous  statue  of  Perseus  by  the  great  Attic  sculptor  of  the 
fifth  century  B.C.,  Myron. 

The  representation  on  the  coin  is  shown  enlarged  in  Fig. 
39.  This  representation  must  have  been  imitated  from  a 
statue  (which  doubtless  stood  in  some  public  place  at  Icon- 
ium); this  seems  proved  by  the  square  basis  which  can  be 
clearly  seen  under  the  feet.  That  coin-types  of  Phiygian  cities 
were  sometimes  imitated  from  works  of  art  in  the  porticos 
or  other  public  places  is  an  established  fact ;  so,  for  ex- 
ample, reasons  have  been  stated  for  thinking  that  several 
picturesque  types  on  coins  of  Apameia  (including  the  famous 
type  showing  Noah  and  the  Ark)  were  taken  from  paint- 
ings in  a  public  building  of  that  city :  see  the  Cities  and 
Bishoprics  of  Phrygia,  ii.,  p.  43 1  f.,  where  other  cases  of 
Phrygian  coin-types  imitated  from  local  statues  are  men- 
tioned.    No  sculptural  copies  of  the  statue  by  Myron  have 


328 


IV.   Iconium 


as  yet  been  found ;  two  copies  of  a  head  of  Perseus  are 
regarded  by  Furtwangler,  Masterpieces  of  Greek  Sculpture, 
p.  200,  as  taken  from  this  statue ;  but  coin-types  at  Argos, 
Iconium  and  Asine,  are  regarded  by  him  as  imitated  from 
Myron's  work  or  from  copies  of  it. 

The  hero  stands  holding  up  the  head  of  Medusa  to  destroy 
his  enemies,  while  he  himself  looks  away  in  order  to  avoid 
suffering  from  the  sight  of  that  head  which  turned  to  stone 
all  who  gazed  upon  it.  The  Iconian  coin  makes  the  hero 
hold  the  Gorgoneion  higher  in  the  air  than  the  Argive  coins, 


Fig.  39. — Perseus  destroying  the  opponents  of  Hellenism  :  coin  of  the 
Emperor  Hadrian,  imitating  a  statue  at  Iconium. 

and  this  attitude  is  certainly  truer  to  the  action  of  the  statue. 
In  Fig.  40  the  distinguishing  characteristic  of  this  Iconian 
type  is  lost.  Perseus  holds  the  Gorgoneion  low;  and  the 
energy  and  spirit  of  the  statue  are  lost  in  this  milder  attitude. 
But  this  attitude  accommodates  itself  better  to  the  shape  of 
the  coin ;  and  hence  it  is  usually  adopted  by  the  artists, 
as  at  Tarsus  (Fig.  8)  and  at  Argos  in  the  example  just 
mentioned. 

We  saw  in  Part  II.,  §  IX.,  that  the  Tarsian  and  East  Ana- 
tolian  Perseus  seemed  to  be  a  Hellenised  form  of  a  native 


I.   Natural  and  National  Character         329 

god  conceived  as  young  and  active ;  this  Hellenic  hero  is 
mythologically  represented  as  the  founder  of  the  Hellenic 
city  who  conquered  the  older  native  population  by  the 
help  of  his  patron  goddess  Athena.  Yet  at  Iconium,  as  we 
shall  see,  Athena  was  merely  a  Hcllcnisation  of  the  ancient 
Phrygian  local  goddess.  The  transformation  of  the  religious 
ideas  accompanies  the  transformation  of  the  Anatolian  town 
into  a  Hellenic  city.  The  old  deities  remain,  and  yet  are 
modified  to  a  certain  degree,  less  in  real  character  than  in 
outward   show  and  name.      The  deep-lying  nature  of  the 


Fig.  40. — Perseus  in  the  commoner  type  (see  Fig.  8) :  coin  of  the 
Emperor  Gallienus. 

religion  was  not  permanently  changed ;  and  the  older 
Phrygian  character  recurred,  as  the  Oriental  and  national 
spirit  was  re-invigorated  in  the  early  centuries  after  Christ 

Now  it  must  be  asked  how  there  could  be  two  legends  in 
the  city  about  its  origin,  a  Phrygian  and  a  Greek.  What  is 
the  relation  between  the  two  ?  The  analogy  of  many  other 
cases  leaves  practically  no  doubt  that  the  two  legends  belong 
to  different  sections  of  the  population ;  one  belongs  to  the 
Hellenised  and  educated  section,  partly  Greek  immigrants 
but  chiefly  Grecised  natives,  and  the  other  to  the  humbler, 


330  IV.   Iconimn 


uneducated  native  Phrygian  population.  This  becomes  clear 
also  if  we  glance  at  the  religion  of  Iconium. 

§  II.    The  Religion  of  Iconium. 

'  The  religion  of  an  ancient  city  was  the  most  complete 
expression  of  its  spirit  and  ideals  and  aspirations,  and  a  full 
knowledge  of  its  religion  would  be  an  epitome  of  the  evolu- 
tion of  its  social  organisation.  About  the  religion  of  Iconium 
little  information  has  been  preserved.  To  judge  from  the 
evidence  of  inscriptions,  the  deity  whose  worship  was  most 
deeply  rooted  in  the  popular  mind  was  a  form  of  the  Phrygian 
Mother-Goddess,  Cybele./  She  was  known  as  the  Zizim- 
qiene  Mother  in  all  this  region  from  Iconium  northwards  to 
a  distance  of  thirty  miles  or  more.  The  name  is  derived 
from  her  chosen  home  at  Zizima  among  the  mountains, 
about  five  hours  north  of  Iconium,  where  she  had  revealed 
her  presence  by  the  underground  wealth  which  she  tLught 
men  how  to  recover.  The  copper  and  the  quicksilver  mines 
beside  the  village  (which  still  bears  the  old  name  under  the 
form  Sizma)  have  been  worked  from  a  remote  period,  as  is 
proved  by  the  extensive  old  shafts;  and  the  latter  are  still 
productive. 

The  underworld,  with  its  abundant  wealth,  as  seen  in 
mines,  and  its  marvellous  powers  seen  in  the  hot  springs 
and  medicinal  waters  and  cool  refreshing  fountains  which 
it  tenders  for  the  use  of  man,  was  the  abode  of  the  Divine 
nature,  and  the  ultimate  home  from  which  man  comes  and 
to  which  he  returns  in  death.  This  thought  was  strong  in 
the  Phrygian  mind,  and  the  serpent  which  lives  in  the  earth 
was  regarded  with  awe  as  the  intermediary  between  the 
Divine  power  and  mankind,  and  as  the  bearer  of  the  healing 
and  kindly  influence  of  the  Divine  nature.     Wherever  signs 


The   Sacred   \'illage   and    Mountain   of  the  Zizinimene   Mother   of   Iconium. 

See  pp.  330,  336,  378. 


II.    The  Religion  of  Iconium 


331 


of  the  wealth  and  power  under  the  earth  were  most  clearly 
manifested,  there  the  Goddess  Mother  had  her  seat ;  and  she 
assumed  a  certain  local  character  according  to  the  nature  of 
the  place  and  the  people,  though  the  same  fundamental 
Divine  conception  underlay  each  of  these  local  forms.  Thus 
Zizima  was  marked  out  as  the  home  of  the  great  deity  of 
south-eastern  Phrygia.  In  Iconium  she  was  styled  also  the 
Mother  Boethene  and  the  Mother  of  the  Gods :  Boethene 
is  apparently  some  old  Anatolian  epithet,  Grecised  in  form, 
so  as  to  suggest  the  meaning  "  the  Mother  who  comes  to 


Fio.  41. — Athena  Polias,  the  Goddess  of  Iconium:  coin  of  Galhenus. 

help"  (as  Apollo  was  the  Boethos  of  the  Tarsians,  Part  II., 
§  IX.);  but  its  real  meaning  was  local,  derived  from  some 
village,  where  the  goddess  had  a  sanctuary,  though  it  is  now 
impossible  to  recover  the  original  form.  The  usual  accom- 
paniments of  the  Phrygian  Cybele  worship  are  found  at 
Zizima,  reliefs  showing  the  goddess  seated  between  her  lions, 
her  priests  with  an  archigallos  as  their  leader,  a  god  named 
Angdistis,  who  is  an  enigmatic  figure,  sometimes  regarded 
as  female,  sometimes  as  male  (like  the  Carian  androgynous 
deity)."' 


332 


IV.   Icoftium 


The  religion  of  Zizima  has  survived  in  a  Christianised  form 
to  the  present  day. 

But  this  native  Phrygian  conception  of  the  Divine  nature 
has  left  little  mark  on  the  coins  of  Iconium.  Only  faint 
traces  of  the  worship  of  the  Phrygian  goddess  appear  on 
them.  Athena  is  the  important  Divine  type :  she  appears 
in  many  variations,  but  the  most  characteristic  represents 
her  standing,  holding  in  her  left  hand  an  upright  spear,  on 
which  she  leans  and  round  which  twines  a  serpent.  The 
serpent  marks  her  character  as  the  health-giving  deity,  and 


Fig.  42. — Zeus  at  Iconium,  with  sceptre  and  thunderbolt :  coin  of  the  first 

century  B.C. 

the  Iconian  Athena  may  be  regarded  as  a  Hellenised  form 
of  the  Phrygian  goddess,  for  a  I^atin  inscription  is  dedi- 
cated to  Minei"va  Zizimmene.  She  was  probably  styled 
Polias,  the  City-Goddess,  as  an  inscription  shows.  Zeus  and 
Perseus,  whom  she  aided  and  directed  in  his  travels  and  his 
conquest,  the  other  important  types  are  purely  Greek. 

The  bearing  of  these  facts  seems  clear.  Athena  with  her 
associated  hero  Perseus  represents  the  immigrant  Greek  in- 
fluence, which  became  completely  dominant  in  the  city,  and 
for  a  time  seemed  to  have  almost  expelled  the  Phrygian 


II.    The  Religion  of  Iconium 


2>2>Z 


religion  from  the  public  ceremonial,  as  Perseus  routed  and 
benumbed  the  natives  of  the  land.  But  this  Hellenic  victory 
was  only  an  outward  appearance.  The  Iconian  Athena  was 
a  strongly  Hellenised  form  of  the  Phrygian  goddess;  the 
immigrant  Greek  element  made  the  native  goddess  their 


Fig.  43. — Relief  at  Iconium,  now  destroyed;  after  the  drawing  of  Texier. 
own  and  gave  her  a  Greek  form ;  but  the  common  people 
never  lost  their  hold  on  their  own  Mother- Goddess. 

This  external  character  as  a  Greek  city  belonged  to  Iconium 
from  the  time  when  its  coinage  began,  probably  about  50  B.C. 
The  educated  classes  and  the  representative  citizens  counted 


334  '^'   Iconium 


themselves  as  Hellenes,  not  as  Phrygians.  The  hero  of  the 
immigrant  Greek  civilisation  had  destroyed  the  Phrygian 
character  and  transformed  an  Oriental  town  into  a  Greek 
self-governing  city.  It  is  highly  probable  that,  just  as  at 
Tarsus,  so  here  also  Perseus  is  a  Grecised  transformation  of 
a  native  hero,  whose  image  is  preserved  to  us  in  a  drawing 
published  by  Texier.  The  stele  from  which  it  was  taken 
was  destroyed  by  a  workman  soon  after  1880,  as  I  was 
informed  by  the  late  Mr.  A.  Keun,  formerly  British  Consul 
in  Konia,  who  attempted  vainly  to  save  it  (Fig.  43). 

It  is  a  remarkable,  yet  indubitable  fact,  that  the  patron 
goddess  and  hero  of  the  Hellenism  which,  according  to  this 
Iconian  legend,  destroyed  the  native  element  in  the  city, 
should  be  the  native  goddess  and  the  native  hero  in  their 
Hellenised  form.  From  this  it  must  be  inferred  that  it  was 
not  a  body  of  Greek  settlers,  but  rather  the  conquering  and 
transforming  power  of  Hellenic  manners  and  education,  that 
seemed  for  the  time  to  have  destroyed  the  native  population 
by  Hellenising  it.  The  Hellenic  spirit  boasted  in  the  legend 
that  it  was  victorious,  and  that  the  Phrygian  village  had  been 
made  into  a  Hellenic  city ;  but  at  a  later  time  the  Oriental 
spirit  revived,  and  the  native  religion  and  the  native  goddess 
returned.  The  East  swallowed  up  Hellenism  ;  but  the  later 
Iconium  was  changed  as  greatly  in  character  as  in  languai^^e 
from  the  old  Phrygian  village.  Its  language  was  Greek,  and 
its  mode  of  thought  and  conduct  was  profoundly  changed. 
A  new  language  means  a  new  soul. 

§  III.    The  Territory  of  Iconium. 

In  attempting  to  estimate  the  character  of  Iconium  and 
the  tone  of  its  population,  we  cannot  follow  chronological 
order  so  faithfully  as  in  Tarsus  and  Antioch.     The  nature 


III.    The  Territory  of  Iconium  335 

of  the  evidence,  which  has  to  be  worked  out  step  by  step, 
makes  it  necessary  first  to  describe  the  territory  and  the 
villages,  next  to  prove  that  Iconium  (which  was  made  a 
Colonia  by  Hadrian)  was  in  the  Province  Galatia  throughout 
the  first  three  centuries,  thirdly  to  describe  its  constitution 
as  revealed  by  inscriptions.  Thereafter,  it  will  be  possible 
to  give  a  clearer  account  of  the  Hellenic  city  and  of  the 
Roman  Colonia. 

Iconium  commanded  and  formed  the  centre  of  a  very 
wide  territory.  The  plain  that  stretches  away  to  north  and 
east  and  south  was  Iconian  soil  to  a  great  distance  from  the 
city.  On  the  south  the  territory  of  Iconium  bordered  on 
Lystra,  among  the  outer  Isaurian  hills.  The  natural  features 
suggest,  and  Ptolemy  is  in  agreement,  that  the  territory 
which  belonged  to  Lystra  did  not  extend  into  the  plain 
(though  Lystra  was  a  Lycaonian  city). 

On  the  south-east,  beyond  all  doubt,  Iconian  soil  stretched 
nearly  as  far  as  Kara-Dagh,  fourteen  hours  away.  On 
the  north-east  it  reached  almost  certainly  to  Boz-Dagh, 
which  divided  it  from  northern  Lycaonia,  a  half- Phrygian, 
half-Lycaonian  district.  On  the  west  and  north  the  bounds 
are  not  so  clearly  marked  by  nature.  Iconian  territory  on 
that  side  extended  some  distance  into  the  mountainous  or 
hilly  region  which  for  the  most  part  belonged  to  the  Oron- 
dians.  Probably  the  basins  of  the  small  streams  which 
flowed  into  the  Iconian  plain  were  included  in  Iconian  terri- 
tory; and  on  this  principle  the  limit  between  Orondian 
territory  and  Lycaonia  {i.e.  Iconian)  has  been  marked  in  the 
map  attached  to  my  article  on  Lycaonia  already  quoted, ^"^ 
The  north-east  part  of  this  hilly  region,  lying  between 
Iconium  and  Laodiceia  the  Burnt,  seems  to  have  formed 
part  of  a  great  estate  belonging  to  the  Roman  Emperors. 


33^  IV*   tco7imm 


That  estate  was  originally  the  property  of  the  Great  God- 
dess, the  Zizimmene  Mother,  or  Mother  of  Gods,  already 
mentioned  in  §  I.  As  was  the  case  at  all  the  great  sanctu- 
aries of  Asia  Minor,  the  Mother  of  Zizima  was  mistress  of 
the  lands  around  her  chosen  home;  and  the  people  were 
her  servants,  the  slaves  of  the  sanctuary.  During  the  Roman 
period  the  mines  and  the  lands  of  Zizima  became  Imperial 
property,  and  were  managed  for  the  benefit  of  the  Emperor's 
private  purse  by  his  own  personal  agents,  his  slaves  and  his 
frcedmen.  The  goddess  had  originally  been  more  closely 
connected  with  Iconium,  if  we  may  judge  from  the  number 
of  dedications  found  in  that  city ;  but  under  the  Romans 
the  mines  were  managed  from  Laodiceia,  as  is  shown  by  the 
large  proportion  of  Imperial  slaves  and  freedmen  who  are 
mentioned  in  the  inscriptions  found  there."  (See  PI.  XII,) 
It  was  usual  that  the  management  of  such  a  property 
should  be  centred  in  a  city,  and  not  in  the  rural  surround- 
ings amid  which  it  was  situated.  So,  for  example,  the 
Phrygian  marble  quarries  (which  likewise  were  Imperial 
property)  were  managed,  not  from  the  quarries,  nor  even 
from  the  neighbouring  city  Dokimion,  but  from  the  more 
important  city  of  Synnada,  nearly  thirty  miles  to  the  south. 
That  is  proved  both  by  the  numerous  references  to  the 
personal  agents  of  the  Emperor  in  the  inscriptions  of 
Synnada,  and  from  the  fact  that  the  Phrygian  marble  was 
known  all  over  the  world  as  Synnadic,  because  people  heard 
of  it  as  connected  with  and  managed  at  Synnada,  and  orders 
for  it  were  sent  there.  Only  in  the  home  country  was 
the  marble  known  as  Dokimian.  The  deciding  reason  for 
this  close  relation  to  Synnada  indubitably  was  that  Synnada 
lay  on  the  road  from  the  quarries  to  Rome,  while  Dokimion 
lay  in  the  opposite  direction  ;  and  if  the  marble  blocks  had 


III.    The   Territory  of  Iconium  337 

been  carried  first  to  Dokimion,  they  would  have  had  to  be 
transported  afterwards  back  past  the  quarries  to  Synnada  on 
their  way  to  Rome. 

Now,  though  Iconium  was  in  some  respects  a  greater  city 
than  Burnt  Laodiceia,  and  probably  more  intimately  con- 
nected with  Zizima  in  primitive  times,  yet  Laodiceia  was 
marked  out  as  the  natural  seat  of  management  for  the 
Roman  estates ;  it  was  on  the  great  Trade  Route  leading; 
to  Ephesus  and  Rome ;  it  was  closer  to  Zizima  than  Iconium 
was;  and  it  lay  between  Zizima  and  Rome.  Had  the  ore 
been  brought  from  Zizima  to  Iconium,  it  would  have  had  to 
be  carried  from  Iconium  to  Laodiceia  on  its  way  to  Rome. 
Roman  convenience  dictated  the  arrangements  in  both  cases. 

This  is  a  typical  example  of  the  great  principle  that 
Rome  was  the  centre  of  the  world  in  that  period,  and  that 
everything  was  arranged  with  a  view  to  ease  of  communica- 
tion with  "  the  great  city,  which  reigneth  over  the  kings  of 
the  earth" — as  "she  sitteth  upon  the  seven  mountains" — 
her  by  whom  "  the  merchants  of  all  things  that  were  dainty 
and  sumptuous  were  made  rich"  (Rev.  xviii.  14),  "the  great 
city  wherein  were  made  rich  all  that  had  their  ships  in  the 
sea  by  reason  of  her  costliness,"  and  whose"  merchants  were 
the  princes  of  the  earth" — the  one  centre  to  which  flowed 
all  trade  and  all  produce  of  the  earth — over  whose  destruc- 
tion "  the  merchants  of  the  earth  were  in  the  end  to  weep 
and  mourn,  for  no  man  buyeth  their  merchandise  any 
more,"  to  whom  resorted  all  the  kings  of  the  earth,  and  all 
the  wealthy,  to  enjoy  her  amusements  and  be  corrupted  by 
her  vices  (Rev.  xvii.  2,  xviii.  3).  In  the  list  of  wares  which 
the  merchants  carried  to  the  great  city  (Rev.  xviii.  12  f.) 
we   recognise  the  produce  of  the  mines  of  Zizima  in  the 

"scarlet,"  for  the  cinnabar   which  was    exported  from  the 

22 


^^S  IV.   Iconmm 


remote  village  among  the  mountains  was  the  vermilion 
pigment  widely  used  in  the  Roman  world.  The  name 
"  Burnt,"  by  which  the  city  was  distinguished  from  the  many 
other  cities  called  Laodiceia,  becomes  full  of  meaning  when 
we  remember  that  this  Laodiceia  was  the  managing  centre 
of  the  mining  trade  of  Zizima,  and  that  the  ore  was  treated 
by  roasting  either  at  the  city  or  in  its  territory.  The 
furnaces  were  a  sight  striking  to  the  ancient  mind,  and  the 
city  became  known  far  and  wide  as  Burnt  Laodiceia.  This 
hitherto  obscure  epithet  reveals  to  us  an  important  fact  of 
ancient  Lycaonian  society  and  trade. 

The  same  epithet  "Burnt"  (Katakekaumene)  is  applied 
to  a  district  of  Lydia,  on  account  of  its  scarred  and  blackened 
appearance,  due  to  volcanic  action  proceeding  from  craters 
which  have  become  extinct  in  comparatively  recent  time; 
and  it  is  likely  to  have  had  a  similar  origin  in  the  appearance 
presented  by  the  city  or  the  neighbourhood.  The  idea  that 
the  name  was  derived  from  a  conflagration  which  destroyed 
the  city  rests  on  no  authority,  and  is  merely  a  modern  in- 
ference from  the  epithet  "  Burnt ".  The  character  imparted 
to  a  landscape  by  numerous  large  furnaces  may  be  seen  (on 
a  much  greater  scale)  in  various  places  at  the  present  day. 
The  ancients  were  interested  in  the  appearance  imparted 
by  fumes  and  fire ;  for  example,  a  recipe  is  given  in  a  Greek 
Magic  papyrus  now  in  the  British  Museum,  "  to  make  brass 
things  appear  gold  "  ;  ^^  the  method  recommended  is  obscure, 
but  it  involved  the  use  of  native  sulphur,  the  fumes  of  which 
impart  a  richer  yellow  tinge  to  brass. 

The  land  of  Iconium  was  extremely  fertile,  and  highly 
cultivated  by  irrigation.  Those  Lycaonian  plains,  in  great 
part  composed  of  rich  and  stoneless  soil,  are  dependent  for 
high  produce  on  irrigation.     The  spring  rains,  which   are 


III.    The   Territory  of  Iconium  339 

generally  abundant  and  make  even  June  a  very  uncertain 
month  in  respect  of  weather,  are  in  most  years  sufficient 
for  a  certain  amount  of  cultivation — much  wider  than  at 
the  present  day.  But  the  crops  produced  by  irrigation  are 
more  abundant,  far  more  certain  as  being  independent  of 
the  varying  rainfall,  and  more  extensive.  A  large  body 
of  water  is  poured  into  the  plain  by  several  streams.  It 
is  at  present  for  the  most  part  dissipated  or  left  to  stagnate 
in  marshes ;  but  in  ancient  times  the  supply  was  (as  we 
have  seen  in  §  I.)  much  larger,  more  regular,  and  properly 
distributed  by  irrigation. 

Strabo  contrasts  the  barrenness  of  the  Lycaonian  plains 
in  general  with  the  productiveness  and  wealth  of  the 
Iconian  territoiy ;  and  the  only  possible  reason  for  the 
difference,  when  the  soil  is  similar,  lies  in  the  irrigation 
which  was  wanting  in  the  one  case,  and  applied  in  the 
other.  An  indication  of  the  abundant  artificial  supply  of 
water  in  the  Iconian  plain  is  seen  in  the  narrative  of 
the  German  crusade  in  1 190,  led  by  the  famous  Emperor 
Frederick  Barbarossa.  When  he  marched  from  Iconium 
towards  the  south,  he  spent  the  second  night  at  a  village 
called  Forty  Fountains.  Now  there  are  no  natural  springs 
in  the  Iconian  territory.  After  careful  questioning  of  many 
informants,  I  could  not  learn  of  the  existence  of  any 
natural  fountain  in  the  plain,  except  a  small  one  under 
the  western  edge  of  Kara-Dagh.  On  or  near  the  line  of 
Barbarossa' s  march  there  is  no  spring ;  but  the  village  to 
which  his  second  day's  march  would  bring  him  was  not  far 
from  the  natural  course  of  the  stream  that  flows  from 
Lystra  into  the  Iconian  plain.  The  Forty  Fountains  must 
have  been  artificial,  supplied  from  the  Lystra  water,  which 
is  still  used  in  a  similar  way,  partly  for  irrigation,  partly 


340  IV.   Iconium 


to  supply  the  large  village  of  AH-Bey-Eyuk  ^^ ;  and  Forty 
Fountains  must  have  been  at  or  a  little  north  of  that 
village.  The  modern  village,  which  takes  its  name  from 
a  large  tumulus  (eyuk),  "  the  mound  of  Ali-Bey,"  close 
beside  it,  is  indubitably  the  site  of  an  ancient  village. 

The  population  of  this  widely  stretching  Iconian  land 
—at  least  200  square  miles  in  extent,  probably  consider- 
ably more — was,  of  course,  not  entirely  concentrated  in 
the  central  town.  To  the  ancients  the  city  was  not  merely 
the  circle  of  the  walls,  but  the  entire  state  of  Iconium, 
with  all  its  territory  and  the  dwellers  on  it.  We  have 
just  given  an  example  of  one  village,  Forty  Fountains. 
Another  was  situated  about  twelve  miles  further  to  the 
south-east,  some  distance  beyond  the  river  Tcharshamba, 
beside  a  poor  modern  khan,  halfway  between  Konia  and 
Laranda.  This  village  must  have  been  not  far  from  the 
extreme  southern  limit  of  Iconian  soil.  Except  for  the 
khan,  the  place  is  now  entirely  deserted. 

On  the  road  to  the  north-east,  crossing  Boz-Dagh  towards 
Colonia  Archelais  (Ak-Serai)  and  central  and  northern 
Cappadocia,  there  was  a  village  four  hours  from  Iconium, 
out  of  whose  ruins  the  grand  old  Turkish  khan  called 
Zazadin  (perhaps  Zaz-ed-Din)  ^*  has  been  built.  So  many 
of  the  stones  from  the  village  church,  evidently  a  large  and 
fine  building,  have  been  built  into  the  khan,  that  an 
architect,  if  allowed  to  demolish  the  khan,  could  probably 
rebuild  the  church  almost  complete.  The  ancient  village  was 
close  to  the  khan  ;  but  its  remains  are  now  wholly  covered 
by  soil.  The  site  is  now  absolutely  deserted.  The  entire 
series  of  inscriptions  built  into  the  walls  of  the  khan  have 
been  published  by  Rev.  H.  S.  Cronin  (who  travelled  with 
me  in  1901)  in  \}c\&  Journal  of  Hellenic  Studies ^  1902,  p.  358  ff 


Ill,    The   Territory  of  Iconium  341 

A  second  village  on  the  same  road  lay  at  the  edge  of  the 
plain,  just  below  the  point  where  it  begins  to  ascend  the 
low  pass  over  Boz-Dagh.  This  site  is  described  more  fully 
in  the  following  section.  It  has  been  entirely  deserted  in 
modern  times,  until  a  small  khan,  called  Ak-Bash,  was 
built  (after  1901,  before  1904)  to  accommodate  travellers 
on  the  road,  which  is  more  traversed  since  the  railway 
has  begun  to  revive  the  prosperity  of  the  country.  An 
old  khan  called  Kutu-Delik  or  Dibi-Delik  stands  about 
half  a  mile  west  of  Ak-Bash.  It  has  been  built  out 
of  the  ruins  of  a  village  which  stood  here  (see  §   IV.), 

The  villages  of  the  Iconian  territory  have  not  been  care- 
fully or  exhaustively  examined  ;  no  part  of  Asia  Minor 
has  been  explored  with  proper  minuteness.  There  would 
be  no  difficulty  in  constructing  a  fairly  accurate  map  of  the 
territory,  showing  most  of  the  villages ;  but  much  time 
would  be  required,  with  careful  and  skilful  work.  The 
villages  were  numerous,  but  the  traces  are  slight.  A  few 
examples  only  are  here  given  of  those  whose  remains  are 
most  familiar. 

Out  of  the  many  Iconian  villages  which  we  have  ex- 
amined all  but  two  have  yielded  inscriptions.  Others  I 
refrain  from  mentioning,  whose  traces  are  plain.  These 
ancient  villages  do  not  always  coincide  with  the  modern 
villages.  Some  are  now  absolutely  uninhabited,  while  in 
many  modern  villages  I  saw  no  trace  of  ancient  life  except 
occasional  stones,  which  had  probably  been  carried.  The 
ancient  villages  lay  mostly  on  the  roads.  Hence  they 
played  a  part  in  the  spread  of  Christianity,  as  will  be 
shown  in  another  place. 

Villages  like  those  of  the  Iconian  territory  must  be 
pointedly   distinguished   from   the   old   class    of  Anatolian 


342  IV.   Iconium 

villages.  The  latter  were  real  centres  of  population  and 
life,  possessing  a  certain  individuality  and  character  which 
differed  utterly  from  the  character  of  the  Hellenic  City  or 
self-governing  State;  such  villages  were  Oriental,  and  not 
Hellenic,  in  character;  and  the  native  Anatolian  "or- 
ganisation on  the  village  system "  is  often  mentioned  as 
diametrically  opposed  to  the  Hellenic  social  and  political 
ideals.  Those  villages  of  the  Anatolian  type  had  certain 
officials,  such  as  komarchs,  brabeutai,  etc.,  varying  in 
different  districts :  so,  for  example,  the  villages  on  Imperial 
estates,  like  Zizima,  retained  their  ancient  native  char- 
acter, and  were  absolutely  noti- Hellenic  in  type.  But  the 
villages  on  the  soil  of  a  Hellenic  City-State  were,  so  to 
say,  outlying  parts  or  detached  fragments  of  the  central 
city.  The  free  inhabitants  were  not  villagers,  but  citizens 
of  the  city,  and  they  shared  in  the  political  rights  of  the 
State.  Such  villages  had  no  individual  character  or  or- 
ganisation ;  it  is  their  nature  to  look  away  from  them- 
selves to  the  city  ot  which  they  are  parts.  Each  free  villager 
was  expected  to  take  his  share  in  the  politics  and  administra- 
tion of  the  city. 

It  is  true  that  some  traces  of  individual  and  separate 
character  may  be  found  in  the  Iccnian  villages.  Thus  a 
village  headman  {irpwTOKwfjirjTTj'i)  is  mentioned,'^  but  only 
during  the  fourth  century  cr  later,  when  the  Hellenic  City- 
State  had  lost  almost  all  its  nature  and  power ;  while  during 
the  Roman  time,  perhaps,  there  was  in  the  villages  of  this 
class  only  a  "first  man  of  the  village"  {irpMTO'i  r/}?  Kci)fxr}<i), 
who  possessed  a  certain  influence  by  rank  and  seniority 
without  definite  official  position.  The  exact  status  of  the 
Iconian  villages  is,  however,  not  quite  certain.  In  certain 
cities  of  Asia  Minor  the  villages  seem  to  have  retained  more 


IV.   Iconium  a  City  of  G alalia  343 

of  their  individuality  than  in  the  true  Hellenic  City-State; 
such  cities,  however,  were  hardly  so  strongly  or  early  Hel- 
lenised  as  Iconium  seems  to  have  been  ;  Hierapolis,  near 
Laodiceia  on  the  Lycus,  is  an  example,  and  it  was  apparently 
strongly  Anatolian  in  character  as  late  as  the  time  of  Au- 
gustus.^® The  evidence  at  Iconium,  though  too  scanty  to 
permit  certainty,  favours  the  view  that  the  villages  were  of 
the  Hellenised  type,  mere  outlying  parts  of  the  central  city  : 
see  the  account  of  the  village  Salarama  in  §  IV. 

§  IV.    Iconium  a  City  of  Galatia. 

That  Iconium  in  the  time  of  St.  Paul  was  a  city  of  the 
Province  called  Galatia,  is  now  admitted  by  every  one,  even 
by  Professor  Schiirer,  the  most  stubborn  opponent  of  Galatic 
provincial  unity.  The  question  now  is,  how  long  that  con- 
nection lasted.  The  view  has  been  stated  in  my  writings 
on  this  subject  that  Iconium  and  Lystra  were  included  in 
Galatia  until  the  reorganisation  of  the  provinces  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  third  century.  Monsieur  Imhoof-BIumer,  on  the 
contrary,  in  his  great  work  on  the  coins  of  Asia  Minor,  places 
Iconium  in  the  Eparchia  Lycaonia,  which  was  formed  (as 
we  saw  in  §  II.)  about  138  A.D.  No  one,  as  a  rule,  is  more 
accurate  in  such  matters  than  the  great  Swiss  numismatist ; 
but  the  evidence  is  here  against  him. 

That  Iconium  belonged  to  the  Province  Galatia  until  the 
end  of  the  third  century  can  be  proved,  not  indeed  with  the 
conclusive  certainty  with  which  the  date  of  the  colonial 
foundation  has  been  demonstrated  in  §  II.,  but  at  least  with 
an  approximation  to  certainty  much  closer  than  is  possible 
for  many  universally  accepted  facts  of  ancient  history.  The 
best  authority  for  the  limits  of  the  Province  about  the  end 
of  the  third   century  is  the  very  brief  Acta  of  St.  Eusto- 


544  IV.   Iconiunt 


chios  in  the  time  of  Maximian.  Eustochios  was  a  pagan 
priest  at  Vasada,  who  adopted  Christianity  after  seeing  the 
steadfastness  of  the  martyrs,  and  came  for  baptism  to 
Eudoxius,  bishop  of  Antioch.  Afterwards,  as  a  Christian 
presbyter,  he  went  to  Lystra,  where  he  had  relatives.  He 
was  arrested,  taken  to  Ancyra,  tried  and  executed  with  his 
relatives  and  children.  It  is  here  clearly  shown  that  Vasada 
was  subject  to  the  bishop  of  Antioch,  and  that  Lystra  was 
in  the  Province  of  Galatia,  of  which  Ancyra  was  the  capital.^^ 
Had  Lystra  been  reckoned  as  a  city  of  Lycaonia,  a  prisoner 
arrested  there  would  have  been  taken  for  trial  to  the  metro- 
polis of  the  Province,  whether  this  was  some  Lycaonian  city, 
or  (as  is  more  probable)  Tarsus  in  Cilicia.^^  Now,  if  Vasada 
and  Lystra  were  in  Galatia,  much  more  must  Iconium, 
which  lay  directly  on  the  way  from  both  cities  to  Ancyra, 
have  been  in  Galatia.     On  this  saint  see  also  p.  378. 

Some  writers  may  refuse  to  be  convinced  by  this  evidence, 
as  the  tale  of  St.  Eustochios  is  not  preserved  in  an  in- 
dependent form,  but  is  merely  related  in  Greek  Menaea 
under  23  June,  and  the  Menaea  are  confessedly  not  an  au- 
thority of  high  character.  But,  although  the  form  in  which 
the  tale  has  been  preserved  is  quite  late,  it  must  rest  on  some 
good  and  early  authority.  Somewhere  about  the  end  of  the 
third  century  Lystra  ceased  to  be  under  Ancyra ;  and  after 
that  time  such  a  tale  could  not  have  been  invented. 

Moreover,  other  authorities  confirm  the  Acta  of  Eustochios. 
Ptolemy  indeed  is  confused  and  self-contradictory :  he  says 
quite  rightly  that  Vasada  and  Lystra  were  in  the  Province 
of  Galatia,  but  he  assigns  the  district  Lycaonia  to  the  Pro- 
vince of  Cappadocia,  and  gives  in  it  seven  cities,  one  being 
Iconium.  This  absurd  and  utterly  unhistorical  classification 
is  due  to  his  mixing  up  authorities  of  different  periods.     His 


IV.   Iconiuni  a  City  of  G alalia  345 

Galatian  list  is  good  ;  and,  though  not  a  complete  enumera- 
tion, is  correct  so  far  as  it  goes,  whereas  the  Cappadocian 
list  is  full  of  inaccuracies  and  blunders,  to  explain  which  so 
as  to  gain  any  knowledge  from  the  list  involves  elaborate 
argument  and  a  good  deal  of  hypothesis.  We  therefore 
leave  Ptolemy  aside  for  the  moment. 

All  doubt,  however,  is  set  at  rest  by  a  milestone,  found 
at  Sakirama  close  under  the  south  slope  of  the  Boz-Dagh 
in  I  con  Ian  territory  (§  III.).  It  was  erected  at  the  order  of 
the  governor  of  the  Province  Galatia,  C.  Atticius  Strabo,  in 
198  A.D. 

It  is  unquestionable  that  this  milestone  originally  stood  on 
Galatian  territory;  and  we  may  confidently  say  also  that 
it  stood  from  the  beginning  close  to  its  present  position  in 
the  plain  below  the  Iconian  end  of  the  pass.  There  was 
here  a  village  or  settlement  under  Iconian  jurisdiction,  and 
the  ruinous  old  Turkish  khan,'^  in  which  the  milestone  is 
built,  has  been  constructed  out  of  the  stones  of  this  village, 
in  the  same  way  as  Zazadin  Khan  (see  §  III.)  was  built. 
The  name  of  the  village  was  (as  will  be  shown  below)  pro- 
bably Salarama. 

It  is  true,  indeed,  that  stones  are  often  carried  from  a  con- 
siderable distance  to  be  used  in  modern  buildings  ;  but  the 
stones  which  are  thus  brought  are  chosen  because  their  shape 
and  size  make  them  suitable  for  the  purpose ;  and  moreover 
transport  is  now  more  necessary  because  the  supply  close  at 
hand  has  been  exhausted.  But  any  observant  traveller — few 
archaeological  travellers,  however,  are  observant  in  such 
matters — can  in  almost  every  case  determine  whether  the 
stones  in  a  large  building,  situated  in  a  now  lonely  and 
isolated  situation  like  this  khan,  have  been  transported  from 
a  distance  or  found  on   the  spot.     Such  evidence  should 


34^  IV.   Iconium 


always  be  noticed  and  recorded  ;  but  how  rarely  is  it  that 
any  explorer  condescends  to  observe  details  of  this  kind. 
Yet  out  of  such  details  history  is  built. 

A  milestone,  obviously,  is  the  kind  of  stone  which  no  one 
would  carry  far,  especially  over  a  mountainous  pass,  to  build 
a  wall :  an  irregular  column,  very  rough  in  surface,  thicker 
at  one  end,  large  and  weighty,  it  is  as  unsuitable  for  building 
purposes  as  any  stone  can  well  be.  Not  far  from  it  is  a  large 
flat  slab,  on  which  once  stood  the  altar  or  table  in  the  village 
church :  it  shows  the  four  square  holes  at  the  four  corners 
and  a  larger  central  hole,  circular,  surrounding  an  inner 
smaller  square  hole,  in  which  the  five  supports  of  the  sacred 
Trapeza  were  fitted,  with  a  dedicatory  inscription  on  the 
front  edge,  "  the  vow  of  Cyriacus  ".  Had  this  stone  been 
transported  from  a  distance  it  would  have  been  broken, 
either  for  convenience  of  transport,  or  from  accident  by  the 
way.  If  it  were  broken  into  small  fragments,  too,  it  would 
be  far  more  useful  for  building ;  but,  as  it  stands,  it  is  nearly 
as  unsuitable  as  the  milestone.  The  mere  weight  of  these 
stones  is  prohibitive.  They  were  put  into  the  walls,  in 
spite  of  their  inconvenient  shape,  because  they  happened  to 
be  lying  near  at  hand,  and  it  entailed  less  trouble  to  utilise 
them  as  they  were  than  to  break  and  trim  them,  or  to  trans- 
port other  more  suitable  stones  from  elsewhere. 

Still  more  important  and  conclusive  evidence  is  got  from 
another  huge  block,  in  the  wall  of  the  khan,  which  must 
weigh  many  tons  and  could  not  be  carried  far  by  Turkish 
builders.  It  bears  the  Greek  epitaph  of  C.  Aponius  Firmus, 
who  had  served  as  a  cavalry  soldier  in  the  Roman  army  and 
attained  the  rank  of  a  petty  officer.  Aponius  belonged  to  a 
family  which  lived  in  this  village  of  Iconian  territory,  and  he 
was  buried  in  the  family  burying-place  here.     It  was  a  family 


IV.   Iconium  a  City  of  G alalia  347 

of  some  wealth  and  importance,  as  can  be  gathered  from  the 
facts :  this  huge  block  of  fine  limestone  must  have  belonged 
to  a  large  mausoleum,  and  the  inscription  extended  over  two 
blocks  at  least,  and  is  engraved  in  large  finely-cut  letters  of 
the  second  or  third  century.  Considerable  expense  was  re- 
quired in  constructing  such  a  tomb,  as  the  limestone  must 
have  been  carried  a  good  many  miles :  such  transport  was 
commonly  practised  in  Roman  times,  though  Turkish 
engineering  was  rarely  capable  of  it.  Moreover  the  "  large 
letters"  of  the  inscription'^''  imply  some  pretension  and  a 
desire  for  conspicuousness.  Another  fine  limestone  block 
(not  so  big  or  weighty  as  this)  from  the  same  village 
cemetery,  perhaps  part  of  the  same  mausoleum,  certainly 
from  the  grave  of  a  member  of  the  same  family,  has  been 
carried  seven  or  eight  miles  south  across  the  plain  to  another 
old  Turkish  Khan,  called  Sindjerli,  It  was  the  gravestone 
of  C.  Aponius  Crispus,  who  had  been  duumvir  {i.e.  supreme 
magistrate)  of  the  colonia  Iconium  somewhere  about  155-170 
A.D.     It  also  is  written  in  Greek.^^ 

The  family  of  Aponius  was  therefore  possessed  of,  and 
resident  ordinarily  on,  a  property  in  this  northern  part  of 
the  Iconian  territory.  Members  of  the  family  entered  the 
Imperial  service,  and  held  office  in  their  own  city;  but  their 
burial  place  was  at  their  country  residence,  about  twenty-five 
miles  north-east  from  Iconium.  The  relation  of  the  villages 
in  the  Iconian  territory  to  the  central  city  has  been  treated 
in  §  III.,  and  this  Aponian  family  furnishes  an  excellent 
example.  It  received  the  Roman  citizenship,  and  took  the 
name  of  a  Roman  family,  well  known  in  the  first  and  second 
centuries,'^-  some  member  of  which  had  been  in  relations  with 
the  first  member  of  the  Iconian  family  that  attained  the 
citizenship.     The  name  and  the  rights  were  transmitted  to 


34^  IV.   Iconium 


his  descendants  in  the  usual  way.  This  family  has  nothing 
of  the  village  character  about  it :  it  was  evidently  Iconian  in 
one  generation  after  another,  using  the  Greek  language,  and 
following  the  usual  course  of  municipal  office,  like  other 
members  of  distinguished  Iconian  families. 

Another  inscription  in  Sindjerli  Khan,  a  dedication  to 
Zeus  Salarameus,  shows  the  local  name.  This  Zeus,  accord- 
ing to  a  common  custom,  derived  his  name  from  the  locality, 
and  as  both  inscriptions  are  likely  to  have  been  brought 
from  one  place,^^  there  is  every  probability  that  the  village 
at  the  foot  of  the  pass  was  Salarama. 

Thus  our  argument  has  afforded  a  decisive  proof  that  the 
village  at  the  south  end  of  the  pass  formed  part  of  the 
Iconian  City-State,  and  that  the  whole  State,  like  this 
part,  was  still  included  in  the  Province  Galatia  as  late  as 
A.D.  198 ;  and  this  practically  means  that  the  connection 
between  Iconium  and  the  Province  Galatia  lasted  unbroken 
from  the  institution  of  the  Province  in  25  B.C.  until  about 
the  end  of  the  third  century  after  Christ. 

Incidentally,  this  result  gives  a  pleasant  confirmation  of 
the  trustworthiness  of  the  Acta  of  Eustochios ;  and  it  is  to 
be  hoped  that  some  fuller  record  of  the  martyrdom  may 
hereafter  be  discovered  ;  in  all  probability  the  Acta  would 
throw  some  welcome  light  on  the  condition  of  Vasada  and 
Lystia  about  A.D.  270-300. 

It  may  appear  immaterial  as  regards  the  Pauline  period, 
whether  Iconium  was  Galatian  in  the  second  and  third 
centuries  after  Christ;  but  such  a  way  of  looking  at  the 
case  is  essentially  superficial.  Though  the  point  does  not 
directly  concern  the  interpretation  of  Acts,  it  has  indirectly 
an  important  bearing  on  it.  You  cannot  get  a  proper 
conception  of  the  character  of  a  Hellenic  city  by  looking  at 


IV.   Iconhim  a  City  of  G alalia  349 

it  in  one  period  alone :  you  must  regard  it  as  a  living 
organism,  you  must  understand  the  history  and  law  of  its 
growth,  and  to  do  so  you  must  "  look  before  and  after  "  the 
period  that  immediately  concerns  you. 

In  regard  to  Iconium  the  critical  question  in  recent  dis- 
cussion undoubtedly  has  been  whether  its  incorporation  in 
the  Province  Galatia  was  merely  nominal  and  external,  or 
was  a  real  and  vital  fact  of  Roman  organisation  which 
would  affect  the  character  of  the  city,  z>.,  of  the  Iconian 
people.  In  thinking  of  a  Hellenic  city  one  must  always 
keep  clearly  in  mind  the  principle  of  city  life  as  stated  by 
Thucydides  :  a  city  is  constituted  not  by  walls  and  buildings 
but  by  men.  The  Hellenic  city  was  an  association  of  free 
citizens,  taking  action  voluntarily  for  the  common  good  by 
choosing  individuals  out  of  their  number  to  whom  they 
should  entrust  for  a  limited  time  certain  powers  to  be  exer- 
cised for  the  benefit  of  the  whole  city,  leaving  the  indi- 
vidual citizen  free  and  uncontrolled  except  in  so  far  as  all 
by  common  consent  curtailed  their  own  rights  in  order  to 
make  the  city  safer  and  stronger. 

The  question  as  to  the  Galatian  character  of  Iconium, 
then,  really  amounts  to  this — was  the  Roman  provincial 
organisation  in  the  first  century  a  mere  fetter  on  the  free 
Hellenising  development  which  had  begun  in  the  city  at 
least  two  centuries  earlier,  an  institution  too  alien  in  char- 
acter to  touch  the  heart  and  spirit  and  life  of  the  citizens? 
or  was  it  a  real  influence  affecting  their  thoughts  and  life  and 
conduct  ? 

The  answer  to  that  question  is  of  prime  consequence  both 
for  the  historian  and  for  the  student  of  the  New  Testament. 
The  character  and  the  measure  of  Roman  influence  on 
Western  Asia  is  involved  in  it:  the  meaning  of  the  terms 


350  IV.  Iconium 


**  Galatia "  and  **  Galatians,"  with  all  the  numerous  conse- 
quences for  the  life,  chronology,  sphere  of  influence  and 
direction  of  missionary  effort  of  St.  Paul,  turns  upon  it. 

In  the  first  place  we  observe  that,  if  the  influence  of  the 
Roman  organisation  on  Iconium  and  the  rest  of  the  group 
of  the  Pauline  cities  of  South  Galatia  had  been  so  essen- 
tially weak  as  writers  like  Prof.  E.  Schiirer  and  Professor 
Zockler  represent  it  to  have  been,  it  must  have  been 
evanescent  and  could  not  have  lasted.  As  we  have  seen, 
Hadrian  modified  the  organisation  of  south-eastern  Asia 
Minor,  to  give  freer  play  and  stronger  effect  to  the  racial 
and  national  spirit.  There  was  then  a  favourable  oppor- 
tunity to  separate  Iconium  from  the  Province  Galatia,  if 
the  connection  had  previously  been  only  external  and 
fettering.  But,  inasmuch  as  the  connection  of  Iconium 
with  the  Province  Galatia  persisted  through  the  reorgani- 
sation, the  probability  that  the  connection  was  strong  and 
real  is  much  increased.  The  Romans  had  hitherto  always 
thought  and  spoken  of  Iconium  as  situated  in  the  half- 
barbarian,  half-Romanised  Lycaonia,  one  of  the  component 
parts  of  their  Province  Galatia.  But  about  130-138  A.D. 
they  separated  it  from  Lycaonia,  and  left  it  in  the  Province 
Galatia,  at  the  time  when  they  were  forming  a  Commune  of 
the  Lycaonians  in  a  new  Province  to  attach  them  more 
closely  to  Rome.  The  Iconians  themselves  had  all  along 
distinguished  themselves  from  Lycaonia  as  being  citizens  of 
a  Phrygian  Hellenic  city ;  and  now  the  Romans  recognised 
Iconium  as  a  Roman  colony,  with  the  highest  class  of  Roman 
rights  permissible  for  a  city  of  the  East,  in  their  old  Province 
of  Galatia. 

Secondly,  Iconium  had  been  attached  to  the  Galatian 
State  before  the  Roman  Province  of  Galatia  was  constituted. 


IV.   Iconium  a  City  of  Galatia  351 

Amyntas,  king  of  Galatia,  ruled  over  it ;  and  the  view  has  been 
maintained  elsewhere  that  Iconium  was  taken  by  the  Gauls 
about  165-160  B.C.^*  Now,  it  is  true  that  very  few  references 
to  the  Galatian  connection  have  been  found  in  Iconium  :  but 
extremely  few  inscriptions  of  Iconium  are  known  earlier  than 
the  colonial  foundation,  and  the  only  document  which  bears 
on  the  provincial  connection  mentions  the  Galatic  Province. 
In  considering  whether  the  people  of  a  city  in  the  Galatic 
Province  would  accept  for  themselves  the  address  "  Gala- 
tians,"  we  may  appeal  to  the  analogy  of  another  city  of  the 
same  region.  Take  the  case  of  Apollonia  in  Pisidian 
Phrygia,  far  further  distant  from  northern  Galatia  than 
Iconium  was,  handed  over  by  the  Romans  to  Amyntas,  the 
last  Galatian  king  :  the  Galatian  connection  must  inevitably 
have  been  far  weaker  there  than  in  Iconium.  Yet  at 
Apollonia  in  A.D.  222  a  citizen  spoke  of  his  city,  in  an  in- 
scription that  has  fortunately  been  preserved,  as  his  "  father- 
land of  the  Galatians,"^^  and  mentioned  his  son's  career  of 
honourable  municipal  office  among  the  noble  Trokmians. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  remind  the  reader  that  the  "father- 
land," to  the  Greek  mind,  was  one's  own  city,  and  not  a 
country  or  a  region.  Moreover,  in  a  monument  exposed  to 
public  view  in  Apollonia  it  was  impossible  to  speak  of  any 
place  except  Apollonia  as  "fatherland". 

Apollonia,  therefore,  geographically  a  Phrygian  city,  by 
education  a  Hellenic  city,  was  politically  so  thoroughly  a 
Galatian  city  in  the  third  century,  that  an  ordinary  citizen 
could  speak  of  its  people  in  this  simple  and  direct  way  as 
Galatians ;  to  hold  a  magistracy  in  Apollonia  was  "  to  be 
glorified  among  the  Trokmoi". 

In  this  last  phrase  the  name  of  one  of  the  three  Galatia/i 
tribes  is  used  as  a  mere  poetic  variation  of  *'  Galatai "  ;  a 


35^  IV.   Iconium 


second  term  was  needed  both  to  avoid  the  repetition  of 
Galatai  in  two  successive  lines  and  for  metrical  reasons.^^ 
Now,  if  in  Apollonia  people  could  speak  in  this  tone  and 
spirit,  there  cannot  exist  a  doubt  in  the  mind  of  any  one 
who  is  guided  by  evidence  and  not  by  antecedent  prejudice, 
that  in  the  southern  cities  of  the  Province  generally  the 
Romanising  spirit  was  strong  enough  to  affect  thought  and 
expression,  and  to  make  the  address  "Galatai"  acceptable 
to  an  audience  gathered  out  of  several  Galatian  cities. 

It  may  be  objected  that  the  actual  examples  which  can  be 
quoted  are  rare,  one  in  Iconium,  and  one  in  Apollonia  ;  but 
this  is  a  valueless  argument.  These  are  the  only  cases 
which  exist,  there  are  no  other  cases  to  quote  on  the  other 
side,  and  these  are  of  the  kind  where  one  is  practically  as 
good  a  proof  as  a  score,  for  one  shows  what  was  the  familiar 
public  custom. 

Thus  from  these  details,  recovered  one  by  one  through 
many  years  of  travel  and  study — during  which  the  isolated 
facts,  insignificant  and  almost  worthless  in  themselves,  have 
acquired  meaning  and  value  through  juxtaposition  with  one 
another — there  is  gradually  built  up  a  unified  conception  of 
Iconium  as  a  city  of  Hellenised  character,  situated  in  the 
extremest  corner  of  the  Phrygian  land  (where  the  Phrygians 
had  encroached  on  what  was  in  a  geographical  view  really 
part  of  the  great  Lycaonian  plain),"'''  but  so  strongly  pene- 
trated with  Roman  feeling  and  loyalty  that  it  was  honoured 
with  the  Imperial  name  about  A.D.  41,  and  finally  raised  to 
the  dignity  of  a  Roman  Colony  about  A.D.  135.  It  always 
held  aloof  from  its  Lycaonian  neighbours  and  fellow-pro- 
vincials, and  clung  to  its  first  Roman  connection  with  the 
Province  Galatia  for  more  than  three  hundred  years,  for 
\jalatia  was  much  more   thoroughly   Romanised  than  the 


V.   Constitution  of  the  Hellenic  City  Iconium     353 

"Three  Eparchies".  Its  coins  show  that  in  the  first  and 
second  centuries  it  boasted  especially  of  its  semi-Greek  origin 
from  the  Greek  hero  Perseus  conquering  the  native  popula- 
tion. Later  a  more  distinctively  Phrj'^gian  origin  seems  to 
have  been  claimed  in  popular  legend.  But  through  all  times 
and  authorities  the  mixed  character  of  the  city  is  apparent, 

§  V.    The  Constitution  of  the  Hellenic  City 
Iconium. 

The  number  of  Tribes  in  Iconium  is  shown  by  the  strange 
expression  employed  in  an  inscription,  "  the  four  stemniata 
of  the  Colony  "  ^^ ;  these  sieniviata  must  be  interpreted  as  the 
four  garlands  of  honour  placed  upon  the  monument  by  the 
four  Tribes  into  which  the  Colony  was  divided,  and  the 
number  apparently  corresponded  to  the  four  elements  out 
of  which  the  population  was  composed.  Unfortunately  the 
names  of  only  three  of  the  Tribes  are  known,  and  some  of 
them  only  in  later  forms  of  Imperial  character. 

One  was  the  Tribe  of  Athena  Polias.  Now  a  dedication 
to  Minerva  Zizimmene  has  been  found  at  Iconium,^  which 
proves  that,  as  has  been  already  stated  in  §  I.,  the  Athena 
or  Minerva  of  Iconium  was  merely  a  Hellenised  form  of  the 
Phrygian  Mother-Goddess ;  and  therefore  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  the  Phrygian  part  of  the  population  was  enrolled 
in  the  Tribe  of  Athena.  This  would  be  in  point  of  numbers 
a  ver)'  large  tribe. 

Another  Tribe  bore  the  name  Hadriana  Herculana,  and 
a  third  was  styled  Augusta.  It  is  impossible  to  say  what 
racial  elements  were  incorpor.'vted  in  these  Tribes,  but 
perhaps  the  Roman  citizens  were  placed  in  the  Augustan 
Tribe.  There  are  analogies  that  favour  this  supposition. 
The  Roman  citizens,  however,  could  not  have  been  sufRci- 

23 


354 


IV.   Iconium 


ently  numerous  under  Augustus  to  constitute  even  a  small 
Tribe,  and  other  racial  elements  may  have  been  incorporated 
in  subdivisions  of  the  Tribe. 

This  Augustan  Tribe  was  doubtless  an  older  institution 
renamed  in  honour  of  Augustus.  It  may  have  contained 
also  some  new  population  introduced  when  Iconium  be- 
came a  Hellenised  self-governing  city.  Iconium  was  in 
the  territory  granted  to  the  Pergamenian  king  Eumenes  by 
the  Romans  in  189  B.C.;  and  it  was  the  invariable  custom 
of  those  Greek  or  semi-Greek  kings  to  maintain  their  power 


Fig.  44. — Heracles  at  the  Colony  Iconium :  coin  struck  under  the  Emperor 

Gallienus. 

by  establishing  Hellenised  cities,  with  an  accession  of  popu- 
lation devoted  to  the  founders'  interests,  as  centres  of  Hel- 
lenism.^** It  is,  however,  practically  certain  that  Lycaonia, 
though  given  to  Eumenes,  was  too  remote  to  be  firmly  held 
by  him  or  his  successors ;  and  thus  Iconium  was  likely  to 
acquire  that  self-centred  and  individualised  character,  differ- 
entiating it  from  other  foundations  of  the  Pergamenian 
time,  which  is  apparent  in  the  scanty  records  of  its  con- 
stitution and  history .^^ 

The  Tribe   Hadriana    Herculana  was  evidently  an  old 


V.   Constitution  of  the  Hellenic  City  Iconizim     355 

Tribe,  united  in  the  worship  of  Hercules,  which  received  an 
additional  title  in  honour  of  Hadrian,  On  coins  of  Iconium 
Hercules  appears  in  a  purely  Greek  form,  as  the  hero  with 
the  club  and  lion's  skin  (Fig.  44).  But  in  those  regions  the 
Hercules  who  was  actually  worshipped  was  an  Oriental 
deity  who  gave  a  new  name,  Heracleia,  to  the  Cappadocian 
town  Cybistra,  and  was  similar  in  character  to  the  Cilician 
Sandon,  No  evidence  justifies  even  a  conjecture  as  to  the 
character  of  this  Tribe. 

The  name  of  the  fourth  Tribe  is  unknown ;  but  when  we 
take  into  consideration  the  long  Galatian  connection,  be- 
ginning probably  about  160  B.C.,  and  remember  that  a 
monastery  "of  the  Galatians"  existed  at  Iconium,^-  the 
probability  is  evident  that  a  Galatian  element  was  intro- 
duced into  Iconium,  and  this  element  naturally  must  have 
been  formed  into  a  distinct  Tribe,  whether  that  of  Hercules, 
or  some  other. 

The  ancient  Phrygian  origin  and  the  new  Hellenism 
of  Iconium  stand  out  clearly  in  the  foundation  legends. 
But  those  legends  are  not  to  be  misinterpreted  as  giving 
any  trustworthy  information  about  the  primitive  history  of 
Iconium.  They  show  what  was  popularly  thought  about 
Iconian  history  at  the  time  when  they  were  current  in  the 
city  and  in  that  part  of  the  Iconian  population  among 
which  they  circulated.  The  Hellenes  talked  of  their  origin 
from  the  conquest  b}^  Perseus,  the  hero  who  represented  the 
immigrant  population  :  the  Phrygians  prided  themselves  on 
their  antiquity  and  doubtless  on  their  autochthonous  origin. 
This  latter  detail  is  not  mentioned  in  the  brief  record  ;  but 
it  cannot  be  doubted  that  in  ancient  times  a  people  who 
believed  they  were  settled  under  the  rule  of  kings  before  the 
Flood,  also  believed  that  they  were  sprung  from  the  earth. 


35^  IV.  Iconium 


The  legend  of  Perseus  was  firmly  rooted  in  the  Iconian 
belief  before  50  B.C.,  for  it  affected  the  earliest  coin-types 
(which  belong  to  that  time). 

About  the  time  of  Christ  Iconium  was  a  Hellenic  city, 
proud  at  once  of  its  ancient  pre-Greek  origin  at  the  very 
beginning  of  history,  and  of  its  transformed  and  thoroughly 
Hellenic  character.  Its  free,  self-governing  constitution  is 
marked  by  the  magistrate's  name,  which  appears  on  some  of 
its  early  coins,  Menedemo ;  son  of  Timotheos.  The  spirit 
here  is  Greek.  Whereas  the  Phrygian  was  quite  Oriental  in 
character,  a  slave  of  government,  submitting  to  the  rule  of 
a  king  or  of  the  god  through  his  priest,  the  Greek  was  a 
free  citizen,  master  of  his  own  life,  joining  by  vote  and 
lively  interest  in  the  administration  of  his  own  city,  his 
fatherland. 

How  and  when  the  transformation  of  Iconium  from  an 
Oriental  town  to  a  Hellenic  self-governing  city  was  actually 
accomplished  in  history  is  unknown.  That  Greeks  must 
have  gradually  settled  as  residents  in  the  town  from  the 
time  of  Alexander  the  Great  onwards  may  be  assumed  as 
certain.  That  process  was  going  on  all  round  the  Eastern 
Mediterranean  lands,  and  Alexander's  victory  made  Asia 
Minor  easily  accessible.  But  this  alone  does  not  account 
for  the  transition  in  government  that  came  about. 

It  may  be  regarded  as  improbable  that  the  Seleucid 
kings  made  any  formal  refoundation  at  Iconium,  such  as 
they  made  at  Laodiceia,  twenty-seven  miles  to  the  north. 
Lycaonia  was  not  a  frontier  land,  where  it  was  important 
to  attach  the  people  by  favour  and  gratitude  to  the  sovereign 
(see  Part  II.,  §  XI.).  Before  189  B.C.,  a  large  tract  of 
country  reaching  far  to  the  west  of  Lycaonia  belonged  to 
the   Seleucid  Empire.     In   that  year  Lycaonia   was  taken 


V.   Constitution  of  the  Hellenic  City  Iconium     357 

away  from  the  Seleucid  sovereign  along  with  all  the  other 
districts  beyond  Taurus.  Whether  the  Pergamenian  kings 
made  any  formal  refoundation  of  Iconium  is  uncertain :  no 
evidence  remains  of  such  action,  and  some  evidence  would 
have  been  likely  to  survive. 

It  seems  probable  that  Iconium,  situated  so  far  from  the 
seat  of  government  and  containing  a  considerable  Hellenic 
population,  partly  Greek  by  origin,  partly  Hellenised  Ana- 
tolian, wrought  out  for  itself  a  constitution  and  widened 
the  citizenship.  The  Pergamenian  kings,  whose  authority 
over  that  distant  region  was  only  nominal,  would  readily 
acquiesce  in  the  change.  This  change  was  the  triumph 
of  the  Hellenic  system  over  the  native  Phrygian  system, 
shadowed  forth  in  the  legend  as  the  victory  of  Perseus. 
The  peculiar  form  of  this  legend  in  Iconium  seems  to 
require  a  supposition  of  this  kind.  In  Tarsus,  where 
Perseus  represents  a  body  of  colonists  introduced  all  at 
one  moment  into  a  mixed  State,  the  legend  has  a  different 
form.     Iconium  attracted  settlers  gradually. 

The  best  parallel  to  the  Iconian  legend  is  found  at  the 
ancient  Celaenae,  where  at  an  early  time  without  any 
formal  colony  Greek  population  and  manners  gradually 
established  themselves,  and  the  transformation  of  the  Phry- 
gian town  into  the  Hellenic  city  was  shadowed  forth  in  early 
legend  as  the  victory  of  the  Greek  Apollo  over  the  Phrygian 
Marsyas.  This  legend  was  far  older  than  the  refoundation  of 
Celaenae  as  the  Seleucid  city  Apameia  {Cities  and  Bishoprics 
of  Phrygia,  ii.,  p.  414). 

The  want  of  any  coins  of  the  second  century  B.C.  might 
be  used  as  an  argument  against  the  theory  that  the  Helleni- 
sation  of  Iconium  occurred  so  early  as  that  period ;  but  the 
weakness  and  uncertain  status  of  the  slowly  growing  Iconian 


35^  IV.   Iconium 


constitution  render  the  argument  weak.  Moreover,  northern 
Lycaonia  with  Iconium  seems  to  have  fallen  under  Galatian 
rule  about  164  B.C.,  and  to  have  been  named  "  the  Acquired 
Land  "  {TTpo(Tei\7]inik.v'r))  ^^ ;  and  it  is  probable  that  Iconium 
was  part  of  a  Galatian  Tetrarchy,  and  therefore  incapable 
of  striking  its  own  coins.  It  is,  however,  quite  possible  that 
a  certain  degree  of  home  rule  should  prevail  in  the  city  under 
the  loose  tribal  Galatian  system,  without  the  higher  sovereign 
rights. 

The  Hellenisation  of  Iconium  is,  as  we  have  seen,  clearly 
marked  in  its  earliest  coins.  Zeus  and  Dionysos  are  the 
principal  types,  two  Hellenised  expressions  of  the  principal 
native  deity.  Perseus  holding  the  Gorgoneion  or  the  Gor- 
goneion  alone  are  the  reverse  types.  The  names  and  letters 
on  the  coins  are  Greek,  like  the  subjects,  showing  that  the 
victory  of  Hellenism  in  the  city  was  complete.  The  pre- 
sence of  a  magistrate's  name  in  some  cases  (as  above  men- 
tioned) proves  the  existence  of  a  constitutional  form  of  city 
government. 

The  period  to  which  these  coins  belong  is  probably  about 
the  middle  of  the  first  century  B.C.  or  slightly  later.  Iconium, 
with  at  least  central  and  southern  Lycaonia,  had  been  taken 
over  by  Rome  and  incorporated  in  the  enlarged  Province 
Cilicia  (perhaps  by  Pompey  in  65-4  B.C.,  perhaps  even  earlier). 
The  relaxing  of  Roman  authority  during  the  Civil  Wars 
after  49  B.C.  may  have  encouraged  Iconium  to  assume  the 
sovereign  right  of  coinage.  In  40  B.C.,  when  Roman  power 
was  reviving  under  the  tyranny  of  the  Triumvirs,  Antony  (to 
whose  share  the  East  was  assigned)  gave  Iconium  and  a 
large  kingdom  comprising  part  or  the  whole  of  southern 
Lycaonia  and  Tracheia  Cilicia  to  Polemon.  This  sovereign 
seems  to  have  proved  incapable  of  ruling  his  large  realm, 


V.     Constitution  of  the  Hellenic  City  Iconium     359 

which  was  to  a  great  extent  peopled  by  unruly  I  saurian 
tribes  of  mountaineers ;  and  in  37  he  was  transferred  to 
Pontus.  The  more  able  and  warlike  Amyntas  of  Galatia 
was  entrusted  with  the  government  of  Lycaonia  and  Pisidia, 
while  Tracheia  Cicilia  went  to  swell  the  vast  kingdom  which 
Antony  presented  to  Cleopatra. 

The  robber  Antipater,  an  acquaintance  of  Cicero's,  had 
made  himself  master  of  Derbe  and  Laranda  ;  but  these  were 
soon  conquered  by  Amyntas,  armed  with  Roman  authority 
and  Galatian  troops.  In  25  B.C.,  however,  Amyntas  was 
killed  in  battle;  and  his  whole  kingdom,  including  North 
Galatia,  Lycaonia,  and  Pisidia,  was  formed  into  the  Roman 
Province  Galatia.  The  right  of  coinage  was  confirmed  to 
Iconium  by  Augustus ;  and  the  coins  just  mentioned  might 
be  assigned  to  this  period,  were  it  not  for  the  magistrate's 
name.  The  cities  of  Galatia  seem  not  to  have  been  per- 
mitted to  put  the  names  of  their  magistrates  on  their  coins, 
a  right  which  was  enjoyed  by  all  the  cities  of  the  Province 
Asia.3* 

Iconium  was  now  a  Gr^eco-Roman  city;  and  Rome  in 
accordance  with  its  usual  policy  made  no  attempt  to  intro- 
duce the  Latin  language  and  custom,  but  accepted  the 
Hellenism  of  the  Graeco-Asiatic  cities  as  a  friendly  power. 
It  is  therefore  one  of  the  many  slight  and  almost  accidental 
examples  of  accuracy  in  details,  which  abound  in  the  book 
of  the  Acts,  that  Luke  gives  the  name  Hellenes  to  the  popula- 
tion of  Iconium,  alone  among  the  Galatian  cities.  In  Lj'stra 
and  Antioch  the  people  are  called  "the  multitude,"  oy\oi 
and  oy\o<i.  This  term,  used  as  the  Greek  translation  of  the 
Latin  plebs^^  was  suitable  for  the  people  of  Roman  Colonies. 
If  the  modern  German  scholars  had  been  right  in  making 
Iconium  a  Claudian  colony,  the  term  Hellenes  used  in  Acts 


360  IV.   Iconium 


xiv.  would  be  unsuitable.     Luke  rightly  uses  the  same  term 
about  the  people  of  Thessalonica,  Corinth  and  Ephesus. 

That  a  body  of  Jewish  settlers  existed  at  Iconium  is 
certain  ;  but  whether  these  Jews  were  citizens  or  merely 
resident  strangers  is  as  yet  unknown.  If  they  were  citizens, 
they  could  hold  the  right  only  as  a  distinct  Tribe  or  as  a 
special  and  exclusive  division  of  a  Tribe.  Evidence  is  still 
very  defective ;  but  any  day  may  reveal  a  decisive  document. 
The  names  of  the  three  Tribes  just  enumerated,  and  the 
fact  that  the  Tribes  had  each  a  prostates  as  its  official  head, 
were  revealed  by  inscriptions  discovered  in  1905  and  still 
unpublished.  Previously  the  constitution  of  Iconium  was 
wholly  unknown. 

§  VII.    Iconium  as  a  Roman  City. 

The  Emperor  Claudius  paid  a  good  deal  of  attention  to 
the  organisation  of  Lycaonia  (see  Part  V.,  p.  387).  It  is  a 
sign  and  a  result  of  this  attention  that  he  gave  three  Lyca- 
onian  cities  the  right  to  add  his  name  to  their  own.  Thus 
we  have  Claudio-Derbe,  Claudiconium,  and  Claudio-Laodi- 
ceia.  This  of  course  does  not  imply  that  those  cities 
become  Roman  coloiiiae^  for  those  names  are  Greek  and 
unknown  in  Latin  usage.  It  might  seem  hardly  necessary 
to  guard  against  such  a  mistake,  yet  a  number  of  highly  dis- 
tinguished German  scholars  have  made  the  error ;  and  it 
seems  hardly  possible  to  eradicate  it.  It  is  stated  in  the 
fundamental  German  text-books,  which  are  in  every  one's 
hands,  that  Claudius  refounded  Iconium  as  Colonia  Claudia 
Iconium  ;  and  this  groundless  and  false  statement  is  repeated 
by  one  writer  after  another,  Marquardt,  Pauly-Wissowa's 
Encyclopaedia,  Zahn,  and  most  of  the  recent  commentators 
on  the  Acts  and  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians :    the  older 


VII.   Iconium  as  a  Roman  City  361 

commentators  are  free  from  it ;  the  blunder  is  one  of  the 
triumphs  of  recent  scholarship ;  but  Professor  Knowling 
carefully  disclaims  it,  and  the  leading  numismatic  authorities 
are  free  from  it.  The  title  Claudia  Iconium  is  a  fiction  of 
Marquardt's,  adopted  on  his  authority  by  his  followers ;  ^^ 
the  title  never  occurs  in  that  form. 

The  constitution  of  Klaudeikonion  continued  to  be  that  of 
a  Greek  city ;  and  the  powers  of  the  State  were  exercised 
by  the  Demos,  the  Greek  assembly  of  all  citizens.  Had 
the  city  been  a  Roman  Colony,  the  public  authority  would 
have  been  exercised  by  the  Colonia,  i.e.,  the  body  of  Coloni 
in  assembly.^^  The  language  of  public  documents  continued 
to  be  Greek.  If  the  city  had  been  a  Roman  colony,  Latin 
would  have  been  used  on  coins  and  in  inscriptions  erected 
by  the  State.  It  is  true  that  a  Roman  Procurator  who 
held  office  under  Claudius  and  Nero  was  publicly  honoured 
by  the  Demos  as  "  Founder,"  ^^  and  this  has  been  quoted 
as  a  proof  that  he  had  founded  the  Colony ;  but  the  title 
"Founder"  was  given  very  widely,  and  in  honorary  inscrip- 
tions means  little  more  than  "benefactor"  (Part  II.,  p.  132). 
Moreover,  a  mere  Procurator  would  not  have  founded  a 
Colonia.  That  honour  would  have  been  reserved  for  an 
officer  of  higher  rank. 

While  it  is  wrong  to  infer  from  the  titles  Claud- Iconium, 
Claudio-Derbe,  that  those  cities  were  Roman  Coloniae,  yet 
the  assumption  of  such  a  title  implies  a  great  deal  of  Roman 
feeling  and  an  enthusiastically  demonstrative  loyalty  in  the 
population.  To  understand  how  significant  such  titles  are, 
a  modern  example  is  helpful.  Let  us  imagine  Queen  Vic- 
toria bestowing  on  the  Irish  capital  the  title  Victorian  Dublin, 
or  the  Irish  people  accepting  such  a  title.  If  such  giving 
or  accepting  had  been  possible,  how  utterly  different  would 


362  IV.  Iconnint 


Anglo-Irish  history  have  been  during  the  nineteenth  century. 
Under  the  Roman  Empire  such  things  were  possible;  and 
the  necessary  inference  from  this  must  not  be  ignored. 

§  VIII.    The  Roman  Colony  of  Iconium. 

The  Greek  city  Klaudeikonion  retained  its  character  and 
status  until  the  time  of  Hadrian,  1 17-138  A.D.  Most  of  the 
Iconian  coins  struck  in  his  reign  are  of  the  Greek  city ;  but 
some  few  are  of  the  Roman  Colonia.  It  is  therefore  clear 
that  at  some  time  in  the  later  part  of  his  reign  Iconium  was 
elevated  to  the  rank  of  a  Colonia,  the  highest  dignity  which 
could  be  conferred  on  a  provincial  city.  It  then  began  to 
use  officially  the  Latin  language  on  coins  and  in  public 
inscriptions.  It  disused  the  honorary  title  derived  from 
Claudius,  and  recurred  to  the  simple  ancient  name  ;  and  its 
full  style  was  Colonia  Aelia  Hadriana  Augusta  Iconiensium 
(or  Iconensium). 

The  time  when  Iconium  became  a  Roman  Colonia  is 
demonstrated  conclusively  by  an  inscription  found  in  1905, 
which  records  the  career  and  public  services  of  the  first 
supreme  magistrate  of  the  Colonia  (duumviro  primo  Col- 
onics).^ His  name  was  M.  Ulpius  Pomponius  Superstes, 
and  he  was  son  of  M.  Ulpius  Valens.  The  names  are 
sufficient  proof  of  the  date.  Evidently  the  father  Valens 
received  the  Roman  citizenship  under  Trajan,  98-117  A.D., 
and  took  his  Roman  name,  M.  Ulpius,  from  the  Emperor. 
It  must  therefore  have  been  some  time  after  A.D.  130  before 
the  son  of  M.  Ulpius  Valens  could  be  of  legal  age  to  be 
appointed  duumvir  of  a  Roman  colony.  The  son  M.  Ulpius 
Pomponius,  as  a  leading  Roman  of  Iconium,  was  appointed 
one  of  the  two  chief  magistrates  in  the  year  that  the  Colonia 
was  founded,  130-138  A.D. 


VIII.    The  Roman  Colony  of  Iconium        363 

The  course  of  events  which  led  up  to  the  foundation  of 
the  Colonia  was  probably  as  follows :  Hadrian,  during  his 
second  eastern  jouiney,  A.D.  130,  formed  the  plan  of  re- 
organising south-eastern  Asia  Minor.  He  saw  that  the 
older  principle  of  provincial  division,  on  which  Asia  and 
Galatia  especially  had  been  formed — disregarding  national 
divisions,  in  one  case  breaking  up  one  nation  among  two 
provinces,  in  another  uniting  many  nations  in  one  province, 
with  the  apparent  intention  of  trampling  on  national  pat- 
riotism as  non-Roman,  and  substituting  the  Roman  unity, 
Asia  or  Galatia  Provincia,  for  the  national  unity — he  saw 
that  this  principle  had  failed,  and  that  national  feelings  were 
gradually  reviving.  He  was  not  prepared  to  reorganise  the 
whole  eastern  world  ;  but  he  made  some  changes  of  the 
provincial  arrangements  in  the  direction  of  paying  more 
respect  to  national  distinctions  and  feelings.  About  the 
last  year  of  his  reign  he  instituted  the  new  Province  of  the 
Three  Eparchiae,  Cilicia-Isauria-Lycaonia.  As  the  name 
and  organisation  show,  these  Eparchies  were  to  be  really 
three  Provinces  conjoined  under  a  single  head,  each  retaining 
its  individuality  and  national  character.  Thus  there  was  a 
separate  Koinon  or  provincial  Council  of  the  Lycaonians, 
and  no  common  Council  of  the  three  Eparchies. 

Iconium  was  not  included  in  this  new  Triple  Province. 
For  the  sake  of  convenience  it  had  to  be  left  in  the  Province 
Galatia ;  which,  without  that  city,  would  have  consisted  of 
two  separate  parts,  far  distant  from  one  another,  Pisidia  and 
North  Galatia.  But,  as  a  compliment  to  Iconium,  it  was 
made  a  Colonia,  and  thus  received  the  highest  privileges 
and  rank  permitted  to  a  provincial  city. 

No  Italian  population  seems  to  have  been  introduced  into 
Iconium  by  Hadrian.     His  foundation  of  the  Colony  was 


364  IV.   Iconiuni 


purely  a  compliment  and  an  honour,  which  undoubtedly  con- 
ferred on  the  citizens  some  advantages  and  improved  rights. 
This  kind  of  merely  complimentary  Colonia  had  been  un- 
known in  Republican  and  early  Imperial  times,  when 
Colon  iae  had  a  Roman  purpose  and  were  formed  by  a  body 
of  Roman  coloni}^  Hadrian  made  Iconium  a  Colonia  by  a 
species  of  legal  fiction. 

As  might  be  expected  from  its  former  loyalty  to  Rome, 
the  city  had  such  a  lively  sense  of  the  honour  conferred  on 
it  by  Hadrian,  that  the  municipal  government  tried  to  act 
as  if  the  city  were  genuinely  Roman.  They  abandoned  the 
use  of  Greek  and  employed  only  Latin  in  official  documents, 
coins  and  inscriptions  (and  doubtless  also  in  documents 
written  on  more  perishable  materials,  like  paper,  though 
these  have  all  perished,  and  positive  certainty  is  therefore 
not  attainable).  This  remarkable  fact  shows  how  real  the 
distinction  was  between  a  Greek  and  a  Roman  city,  and 
how  much,  as  regards  the  pride  of  Iconium  and  patriotism 
and  sense  of  dignity,  was  involved  in  the  question  whether 
it  was  a  Greek  city  or  a  Roman  Colonia  in  the  time  of  St 
Paul.  The  account  which  is  given  of  Iconium  in  my  Church 
in  the  Roman  Empire  *^  and  in  St.  Paul  the  Traveller  would 
be  fundamentally  inaccurate  if  it  had  been  a  colony  founded 
by  Claudius. 

The  people,  of  course,  could  not  change  their  language 
so  easily  as  the  municipality  could.  They  continued  to 
speak  Greek  and  to  write  in  Greek.  The  epitaphs,  with 
the  rarest  exceptions,  are  Greek  after  138  A.D.,  as  they  were 
before.  In  this  respect  Iconium  offers  a  strong  contrast 
to  Pisidian  Antioch  (where  the  epitaphs  were  for  the  most 
part  Latin  throughout  the  first  two  centuries  of  the  Empire), 
and  even  to   Lystra,  where  Latin   epitaphs   are  quite  as 


VIII.    The  Roman  Colony  of  Iconium         365 

numerous  as  Greek,  the  Greek  epitaphs  being  later  and  the 
Latin  older. 

The  Roman  city  or  Colonia  Iconiensis  formed  a  new 
ideal  for  itself.  The  statue  of  Marsyas,  the  emblem  and 
pledge  of  Roman  rights  and  liberty,  was  erected  in  the 
Iconian  forum,  and  represented  as  a  type  on  its  coins.  The 
other  usual  Colonial  types,  the  she- wolf  with  the  twins  and 
the  founder  of  the  Colony  guiding  the  plough,  blazoned  the 
Roman  character  of  Colonia  Iconiensis.     The  type  of  the 


FiQ.  45. — ^The  Roman  Wolf  at  the  Colony  Iconium  :  coin  struck  under  the 
Emperor  Gallienus. 

she-wolf  was  imitated  from  the  famous  Roman  statue  by 
many,  perhaps  by  all  Roman  colonies,  and  a  copy  of  the 
statue  was  probably  placed  in  the  forum  of  Iconium.  The  last 
type  represents  the  ceremony  of  founding  the  Colony.  After 
the  auspices  had  been  taken,  the  high  official  who  was  charged 
with  the  duty  marked  out  the  limits  of  the  new  city  and  the 
line  of  the  foss  by  ploughing  a  furrow.  Every  detail  of  the 
solemn  religious  act  had  to  be  performed  with  the  due  ritual. 
The  plough  was  drawn  by  a  yoke  of  bull  and  cow,  both 
white :  the  cow  was  on  the  left,  the  bull  on  the  right.     The 


366  IV.  Iconium 


officer  wore  the  toga  girt  in  the  ancient  fashion  called  after 
the  old  Latin  town  of  Gabii,  and  a  fold  of  it  was  passed 
over  his  head  like  a  veil;  Fig.  53  shows  the  same  type  at 
Lystra,  and  it  occurs  also  on  coins  of  Colonia  Antiochia. 

The  name  of  the  Roman  Senate  (S.  R.))  which  is  inscribed 
on  Iconian  coins  of  the  third  century,  recalls  the  Roman 
connection.  The  same  initials  are  placed  on  the  coins  of 
Antioch  in  that  century.  Mallos  places  on  its  coins  after 
it  became  a  Colonia  either  the  full  legend  SACRA  SINA- 
TUS,  misspelt  and  ungrammatical,  or  the  letters  S.  C,  "by 
decree  of  the  Senate ".  These  facts  point  to  some  new 
arrangement  whereby  the  Roman  Senate  was  granted  some 
rights  in  connection  with  the  coinage  of  these  eastern 
Coloniae  in  the  third  century,  showing  how  real  their  re- 
lation to  Rome  was  throughout  the  Imperial  time.  It  was 
a  point  of  honour  in  those  Coloniae  to  claim  recognition  of 
their  character  as  no  ordinary  provincial  cities,  but  outlying 
parts  of  Rome  itself. 

Yet  the  Greek  character  was  not  expelled,  and  could  not 
be  expelled,  for  Iconium  had  been  too  strongly  affected  by 
Greek  education  and  feeling ;  it  was  still  a  Greek-speaking 
city  (except  perhaps  among  the  humbler  classes,  where 
the  Phrygian  language  may  have  still  lingered),  and  so 
far  as  it  contained  works  of  art,  they  were  Greek  works. 
The  later  coins  reflect  this  side  of  the  city's  life,  when  they 
occasionally  employ  Perseus  as  a  type,  or  show  us  the  three 
Graces  (probably  taken  from  a  group  of  statuary  in  one 
of  the  public  places  or  halls).  Athena,  too,  was  the  chief 
Divine  type,  and  not  any  Roman  god.  The  Emperors  were 
the  sufficient  envisagement  of  Roman  divinity. 

But  the  native  Phrygian  character  found  no  admission 
on  the  coins,  in  spite  of  its  growing   strength  among  the 


VIII.    The  Roman  Colony  of  Iconium        367 

people.  It  remained  always  inarticulate,  strongest  among 
the  uneducated,  living  in  the  popular  heart.  We  can  only 
dimly  trace  it  on  the  lips  of  the  people,  as  when  the  Iconian 
Hierax,  a  slave  in  Rome  condemned  as  a  Christian  in  163 
A.D.,  informed  the  Prefect  who  was  trying  the  case  that 
he  had  come  from  Iconium  of  Phrj^gia;  or  when  Bi-^hop 
Firmilian  mentions  that  the  Council  of  232  A.D.  was  held 
at  Iconium  in  Phrygia  (doubtless  repeating  the  description 
which  he  heard  in  the  city,  when  he  attended  the  Council). 


Fig.  46. — The  Good  Fortune  of  the  Colony  Iconium :  coin  struck  under  the 
Emperor  Gordian  III. 

Yet  the  national  character  was  not  eradicated.  Hellenism 
was  here  only  a  superficial  stratum.  The  deep-lying  char- 
acter gradually  re-emerged.  The  revival  of  the  national 
Anatolian  character  after  the  first  century  of  our  era  is  a 
general  and  striking  feature  in  Asia  Minor.  The  Hellenistic 
character  grows  weaker  and  the  Oriental  stronger ;  or 
perhaps  it  would  be  more  correct  to  say  that  a  new  and 
mixed  type  was  developed,  in  which  Oriental,  Greek  and 
Roman  characteristics  were  all  blended. 

The  name  of  the  city  reflects  its  character.  It  never 
abandoned  its  ancient  name :  it  held  too  firmly  to  its  glory 


;68 


IV.   Iconium 


as  the  oldest  of  cities  to  give  up  the  name  that  marked  its 
origin.  Similarly  in  Lydia  the  ancient  capital  Sardis  never 
abandoned  its  name  and  its  Lydian  primeval  fame;  but 
Philadelphia,  a  Grecised  refoundation  of  an  old  Lydian 
town,  changed  its  name  to  Neocaesareia  (though  this  did 
not  last  long),  and  Hiera  Kome  permanently  assumed  the 
name  Hiero-Caesareia.  Sardis  indeed  added  an  epithet 
to  mark  its  Roman  character  and  its  favour  with  the 
Emperor  Tiberius,  and  styled  itself  "  Caesarian  Sardis " ; 
and  for  the  same  reason  Iconium  styled  itself  "Claudian 


Fig.  47. — The  Good  Fortune  of  the  Colony  Iconium :  coin  struck  under  the 
Emperor  Gordian  III. 

Iconium ".  In  both  cases  the  epithet  lasted  for  a  time, 
and  gradually  passed  out  of  use.  But  such  epithets 
indicate  the  tenacious  clinging  to  the  character  of  the 
Greek  constitutional  state :  Sardis  or  Iconium  was  still  a 
Greek  city  qualified  by  a  Roman  honorary  appellation,  a 
Greek  constitution  modified  by  Roman  admixture. 

While  the  Phrygian  religion  never  appears  in  the  coinage, 
it  affects  the  ideal  representation  of  the  city.  The  Good 
Fortune  of  Iconium  appears  always  as  a  matronly  figure 
seated  on  a  throne,  after  the  fashion  of  Cybele  (Figs.  46, 


VIII.    The  Roma7i  Colony  of  Iconium        369 

47) ;  she  wears  the  Kalathos  on  her  head  and  the  full  dress 
of  a  Greek  lady ;  supported  in  one  arm  is  the  cornucopia, 
while  her  other  hand  holds  the  rudder ;  under  her  chair  is 
the  wheel.  These  are  the  usual  attributes  of  Good  Fortune ; 
but  the  ordinary  Roman  type  shows  the  goddess  standing. 
The  Iconians  preferred  the  seated  figure,  under  the  influence 
partly  of  Cybele  representations,  partly  of  the  established 
Hellenistic  figure  of  the  Good  Fortune  of  the  city.  The 
standard  of  this  last  type  was  the  statue  of  Syrian  Antioch, 
seated  on  the  rocks  with  the  river  Orontes  issuing  from 


Fig.  48. — The  Empress  Poppaea  as  the  Goddess  of  Iconium,  a.d.  60-62. 
beneath  her  feet.     From  Antioch  this  type  spread  through 
Taisus  to  Lystra  and  to  Barata  in  Lycaonia,  and  was  more 
faithfully  imitated  in  those  Lycaonian   cities   than  in  the 
Cilician  metropolis  (p.  1S7). 

It  was  certainly  the  influence  of  the  widespread  An- 
tiochian  type  that  made  the  Iconian  artist  sometimes  add 
the  river-god  at  the  feet  of  the  city  goddess :  this  adjunct 
is  doubly  unsuitable  at  Iconium,  for  not  merely  is  the  river 
out  of  harmony  with  the  chair  (as  at  Tarsus,  p.  187),  but  also 
there  is  no  river  at  the  city.  Several  small  streams  flow  out 
of  the  western  mountains,  but  even  the  nearest  and  largest 

24 


370  IV.   Iconiwn 


is  exhausted  for  irrigation  purposes  before  reaching  the  walls. 
The  Tcharshamba  Su,  which  is  far  distant  on  the  extreme 
limits  of  the  city  territory,  is  the  only  Iconian  river  of  any 
consequence. 

Accordingly  the  Good  Fortune  of  Iconium  is  a  sort  of 
compromise  between  the  Roman  type  and  the  Hellenistic. 
This  Iconian  type  shows  that  the  portrait  of  Poppaea  on 
coins  struck  under  Nero  (Fig.  48)  represents  the  Empress 
under  the  form  of  the  city  goddess,  holding  the  sceptre  in 
the  right  hand,  and  flowers,  perhaps  poppies,  in  the  left : 
compare  the  Antiochian  goddess,  Figs.  34,  38. 

S  IX.    St.  Paul  at  Iconium. 

/ 

The  account  of  Paul's  work  at  Iconium  is  couched  in  very 

general  terms — a  period  of  successful  work,  followed  by  a 
riot  and  expulsion  from  the  city.  But  even  in  this  vague 
outline  it  is  clear  that  the  circumstances  were  markedly 
different  from  what  happened  at  Antioch.  The  Apostles 
resided  a  considerable  time  at  Iconium  ;  the  stress  laid  on 
this  point  implies  that  they  stayed  there  longer  than  at  any 
other  place  on  this  journey.  Future  history  shows  that 
Iconium  was  one  of  the  most  influential  seats  of  the  new 
religion  in  Asia  Minor.  Through  inscriptions  we  can  trace 
the  ways  by  which  a  uniform  type  of  religious  custom  was 
diffused  over  a  very  large  region  of  central  and  southern 
Anatolia,  and  Iconium  was  indubitably  the  centre  from  which 
it  spread.*^  May  we  suppose  that  the  long  residence  in 
Iconium  was  more  permanently  effective  than  the  sudden 
rapid  impression  produced  in  Antioch  ?  Or  shall  we  prefer 
to  think  that  the  importance  of  Iconium  as  a  centre  from 
which  Christianity  spread  was  due  to  the  ease  of  communi- 
cation between  it  and  the  country  round?     Perhaps  both 


IX.   SL  Paul  at  Iconium  371 

causes  had  some  share  in  the  result ;  but  personally  I  feel 
inclined  to  lay  some  stress  on  the  first. 

It  must  also  be  observed  that  there  was  no  ruling  oli- 
garchy in  Iconium,  like  the  Roman  colonists  in  Anti:;ch. 
Iconium  was  a  Hellenic  city,  where  the  power  lay  in  the 
hands  of  the  whole  body  of  citizens.  In  Antioch  Paul's 
Jewish  enemies  accomplished  their  object  by  appealing 
privately  to  the  oligarchy  through  the  ladies  of  high  rank 
who  were  within  the  influence  of  the  Synagogue.  In 
Iconium  they  gained  the  same  end  by  gradually  working 
on  the  feelings  of  the  masses.  "  The  Jews  that  disbelieved 
stirred  up  the  souls  of  the  Gentiles  and  made  them  evil 
affected."  This  was  a  slow  process,  and  during  it  Paul 
"tarried  there  a  long  time,  speaking  boldly".  Gradually 
"  the  population  of  the  city  was  divided  and  part  held  with 
the  Jews  and  part  with  the  Apostles  ".  There  can  be  little 
doubt  that  the  uneducated  mob  was  the  part  that  held  with 
the  Jews  ;  that  is  shown  both  by  the  example  of  Lystra  and 
by  the  issue  in  Iconium. 

One  must  observe  the  art  with  which  the  method  of 
narration  brings  out  the  slow  gradual  growth  of  the  dis- 
affection :  the  Jews  begin  it,  thereafter  occurs  a  long  period 
of  work,  and  then  at  last  a  popular  riot  breaks  out.  The 
Bezan  editor  misunderstood  the  method  of  the  narrative ; 
and,  through  the  comments  which  he  adds  to  the  text,  de- 
scribes two  riots  in  Iconium  :  one  was  stirred  up  by  the 
Jews  when  they  began  to  excite  the  minds  of  the  mob  :  soon 
this  was  pacified,  for  "the  Lord  quickly  gave  peace":  there- 
after followed  the  period  of  successful  work,  and  then  the 
great  second  riot  which  expelled  the  Apostles. 

In  Pisidian  Antioch  the  expulsion  was  produced  by  magis- 
terial action;  in  Iconium   it   was   brought   about   by  mob 


372  IV.   Iconium 


violence,  for  it  may  be  assumed  that  the  attempt  at  stoning 
the  Apostles  came  from  the  lower  classes  under  Jewish  in- 
stigation. One  sees  how  well  the  difference  corresponds  to 
the  contrasted  characters  of  the  two  cities,  one  governed 
by  a  Roman  aristocracy,  the  other  by  a  Hellenic  body  of 
citizens. 

Taking  into  account  the  character  of  ancient  life  and  city 
government,  we  have  material  in  the  narrative  of  Luke  to 
form  some  picture  of  the  expulsion  of  the  Apostles  from 
Iconium. 

In  judging  about  such  a  situation  as  this,  one  must  bear 
in  mind  the  great  difference  between  ancient  and  modern 
facts.  The  magistrates  of  an  ancient  city  were  the  bearers 
of  sovereign  power.  During  their  term  of  office  they  exer- 
cised the  authority  which  belonged  to  an  independent,  self- 
ruling,  supreme  people,  and  which  that  people  had  entrusted 
to  them  by  free  election.  In  particular,  large  and  unde- 
fined powers  of  acting  to  preserve  order  rested  in  their 
hands.  The  safety  of  the  people  was  the  supreme  law.  If 
the  magistrates  considered  that  tlie  presence  of  any  stranger 
was  a  cause  of  disturbance,  they  were  empowered  in  the 
interest  of  public  order  and  safety  to  eject  the  stranger  by 
summary  process,  without  formal  trial ;  public  opinion  en- 
tirely justified  this  kind  of  action,  and  even  regarded  it  as 
a  proof  of  good  spirit  in  the  magistrates.  Roughly  speaking, 
the  magisterial  power,  being  sovereign,  was  such  that  all 
action  not  expressly  forbidden  to  them  was  permitted, 
always  supposing  on  their  part  the  good  intention  to  main- 
tain order  and  authority  and  peace.  In  modern  times,  on 
the  contrary,  all  action  not  expressly  permitted  to  magis- 
trates is  forbidden  to  them,  for  their  power  is  not  sovereign. 
In  thus  expelling  obnoxious  individuals  the  ancient  magis- 


IX.   SL  Paul  at  Iconium  yj"^ 

trates  were  quite  justified  in  summarily  inflicting  personal 
chastisement.  Much  depended  on  the  character  and  standing 
of  the  persons  expelled  ;  the  humbler  they  were  in  station, 
the  more  likely  was  it  that  expulsion  would  be  accompanied 
by  blows  and  even  regular  flogging. 

Thus,  on  one  side,  the  power  of  the  ancient  city-magis- 
trates was  immensely  wider  than  that  of  modern  magistrates. 
On  another  side,  it  was  more  restricted.  Their  action  had 
merely  temporaiy  eff"ect :  it  was  not  a  lasting  condemnation 
of  persons  or  of  teaching.  It  was  also  narrow  in  its  sphere: 
it  applied  only  to  one  town,  and  carried  no  force  beyond. 

Further,  this  expulsion,  being  merely  ordered  by  the 
magistrates  in  virtue  of  their  power  to  do  what  they  con- 
sidered needful  to  preserve  order  in  the  city  under  their 
charge,  carried  with  it  no  permanent  disqualification  from 
returning  to  Iconium.  It  did  not  always  imply  that  the 
persons  expelled  had  done  anything  wrong ;  but  their  presence 
in  the  city  had  been  productive  of  discord,  and  the  quickest 
and  easiest  way  of  quieting  the  discord  was  to  remove  the 
cause  outside  of  the  city  territory.  The  disorder  in  Iconium 
had  arisen  because  of  the  coming  of  these  strangers :  if  the 
strangers  were  expelled,  the  disorder  would  cease.  Such  was 
the  easy  way  of  administration,  which  sought  peace,  not 
justice.  It  would  depend  on  the  personal  feelings  of  the 
magistrates  whether  or  not  the  expulsion  was  accompanied 
by  personal  chastisement. 

Such  an  expulsion  was  simply  an  order  to  move  on ; 
though  it  was  likely  to  be  repeated  if  Paul  and  Barnabas 
returned  to  Iconium  while  the  matter  was  still  fresh  in  the 
magistrates'  memory.  But,  after  a  reasonable  interval,  and 
especially  after  a  new  year  had  begun  and  new  officers  had 
come  into  power,  the  Apostles  were  not  likely  to  be  inter- 


374  IV.  Iconium 


fered  with,  except  on  a  fresh  occasion  if  other  disturbances 
began  and  fresh  complaints  were  made  against  them. 

Accordingly,  considering  the  excellent  opening  offered 
in  Iconium  and  Antioch,  one  would  not  be  surprised  that 
the  immediately  following  journey  was  regarded  by  Paul  not 
so  much  in  the  light  of  a  new  enterprise,  but  rather  as  a 
useful  way  of  spending  the  interval  that  must  elapse  before 
he  could  return  to  Iconium. 

§  X.    The  Christian  Cults  of  Iconium. 

Iconium,  with  its  neighbourhood,  is  the  one  place  in  Asia 
Minor  where  the  pre-Turkish  ecclesiastical  system  remains 
in  force  to  the  present  day  with  little  change.  The  Christian 
population  has  remained  in  continuous  possession  of  its  own 
shrines,  free  to  practise  its  own  religious  ceremonial  with 
little  restriction.  In  the  Seljuk  realm  there  was  no  tendency 
to  oppress  or  ill-treat  the  Christian  population,  on  which  the 
industry  and  trade  of  the  Mohammedan  state  largely  de- 
pended. A  Greek  built  the  most  beautiful  college  (Medresse) 
in  Sivas,  a  leading  city  of  the  Seljuk  Empire,  and  his  name 
Kaloyan  {i.e.  Kalo-Yanni  or  Joannes)  is  inscribed  upon  it. 
The  Christian  heretics,  who  abounded  in  Phrygia  and 
Lycaonia,  preferred  the  mild  Seljuk  rule  to  the  persecuting 
bigotry  of  the  Orthodox  Emperors.  Hence  the  ritual  of 
Iconium  was  not  actively  interfered  with  by  the  Moslems, 
while  Konia  lay  too  far  apart  from  the  Christian  world  to 
have  its  old  customs  modified  by  change  of  religious  feeling 
or  by  the  growth  of  new  needs.  In  such  a  city  as  Smyrna, 
the  existing  facts  of  religion  cannot  safely  be  taken  as  evi- 
dence of  the  Byzantine  system ;  for  there  foreign  influence 
and  close  relation  with  other  Greek  ecclesiastical  centres 
have  caused  a  certain  amount  of  change  (it  cannot  well  be 


X.  The  Christian  Cults  of  Iconium        375 

called  development)  in  the  local  church  arrangements.  In 
Konia,  on  the  contrary,  we  can  confidently  regard  the  present 
facts  as  preserving  the  Byzantine  ecclesiastical  ritual.  Hence 
a  sketch,  even  imperfect,  of  the  chief  Greek  ceremonial  at 
Konia  presents  some  interest  as  a  record  of  historical  sur- 
vival. 

There  are  four  popular  festivals  {panegyris)  among  the 
Orthodox  of  Konia. 

I.  St.  Chariton  has  a  monastery,  now  uninhabited,  except 
at  the  time  of  the  festival  on  28th  September.  The  build- 
ings, however,  are  kept  in  repair  by  a  custodian  (who  is  not 
a  monk,  but  a  layman).  They  are  situated  in  a  narrow 
rocky  glen,  which  extends  up  from  the  plain  of  Konia  into 
the  mountains,  about  five  miles  north-west  of  the  city,  and 
close  under  the  hill  of  St.  Philip  (Takali  Dagh).  This  glen 
is  parallel  to  the  one  in  which  is  situated  the  large  village  of 
Sille,  inhabited  by  many  Christians  and  a  smaller  number  of 
Mohammedans  ;  but  the  glen  of  Sille  is  nearly  a  mile  further 
north.  The  monastery  of  St.  Chariton,  situated  under  a 
perpendicular  precipice  on  the  north  side  of  the  glen,  is  re- 
garded as  holy  even  by  the  Moslems  ;  a  small  mosque  stands 
in  the  centre  of  it ;  and  the  Tchelebi-Effendi,  the  chief  of 
the  Mevlevi  Order  of  Dervishes,  makes  a  donation  of  olive 
oil  every  year.  The  legend  explaining  the  origin  of  the 
Turkish  veneration  is  mentioned  in  Pauline  and  Other 
Studies,  p.  188;  but  according  to  the  best  form  of  the 
legend  it  was  the  son  of  a  former  Tchelebi  Effendi,  or  of  the 
founder  of  the  Order,  Djelaled-Din  himself,  who  fell  over 
the  precipice  and  was  caught  in  his  fall  by  the  saint  and  so 
preserved.     (See  Plate  XIII.) 

St.  Chariton  was  a  real  personage,  but  the  biographical 
details  which  are  preserved  about  him  {Ada  Sanctorum, 


376  IV.   Iconium 


28th  September,  p.  575)  are  wholly  legendary.  The  only 
facts  that  can  be  trusted  are  that  he  was  born  at  Iconium 
and  that  he  founded  a  famous  monastery  near  Jerusalem. 
His  date  is  stated  under  Aurelian  (about  272  A.D.)  by  most 
authorities,  which  is  impossible,  under  Julian  (363-5  A.D.) 
by  one,  which  may  be  correct. 

Besides  the  Turkish  mosque  there  are  in  the  monastery 
shrines  of  the  Virgin,  of  St.  Saba,  and  of  St.  Amphilochius. 
The  last  was  much  venerated  in  Iconium  also  (see  below). 
St,  Saba  also  was  a  founder  of  monasteries  in  Palestine; 
and  therefore  he  was  suitably  associated  with  St.  Chariton 
in  this  monastery. 

2.  St.  Philip  has  given  his  name  to  the  nearer  of  the  twin 
peaks,  which  tower  above  Iconium  about  six  or  seven 
miles  to  the  north-west.  In  the  photograph,  Plate  XI.,  their 
height  is  dwarfed,  because  the  view  is  taken  too  close  to 
the  city.  From  a  distance  of  ten  or  twenty  miles,  St.  Philip 
seems  to  stand  over  Konia  like  a  guardian.  The  broad  and 
lofty  summit  of  Loras  Dagh  alone  is  in  some  respects  an 
even  more  striking  feature  of  the  scenery ;  but  about  the 
religious  ideas  which  were  doubtless  connected  with  it  I 
have  learned  nothing. 

The  hill  of  St.  Philip  had,  beyond  all  question,  religious 
meaning  and  awe  for  the  Iconians  of  pre-Christian  times ;  but 
about  this  nothing  is  known.  The  great  Byzantine  fortress, 
which  crowns  the  mountain,  has  obliterated  all  signs  of  pagan 
work.  The  Turkish  name,  Takali  Dagh,  is  evidently  identi- 
cal with  Dakalias,  as  the  Arabs  of  the  ninth  century  called 
a  great  fortress  near  Iconium.**  In  July,  1907,  I  heard  from 
one  informant  that  the  name  Gevele  is  also  applied  to  Takali ; 
but  had  not  the  opportunity  of  verifying  this  report.  Gevele 
is  the  modern  form  of  the  ancient  name  Kabala  or  Kaballa.**^ 


X.    The  Christian  Cults  of  Iconium        2>7'7 

The  panegyris  at  the  hill  of  St,  Philip  is  in  my  notes 
dated  24th  November;  but  this  must  be  due  to  a  slip  on  the 
part  either  of  my  informant  (who  made  several  other  small 
inaccuracies,  which  he  afterwards  corrected)  or  of  myself. 
The  day  of  St.  Philip  the  Apostle  is  14th  November  in  the 
Eastern  Church,  ist  May  in  the  Western. 

That  St.  Philip  of  Iconium  was  the  Apostle,  not  the 
Deacon  (whose  festival  was  on  6th  June),  seems  certain. 
It  is  possible  that  tradition  told  of  the  journey  of  St.  Philip 
to  Hierapolis  and  to  Ephesus  by  way  of  Iconium  ;  and  there 
is  in  fact  a  probability  that  a  missionary  would  prefer  the 
land  route  to  the  sea  way,  and  the  longer  road  through  the 
Christian  cities  to  the  short  "  Syrian  Route "  from  the 
Cilician  Gates  by  Savatra.  Why  St.  Philip  should  be  pre- 
ferred to  St.  Paul  as  the  guardian  of  Iconium  is  a  matter  of 
local  superstition,  which  is  always  capricious  and  irrational. 
Possibly  Loras  Dagh,  which  overhangs  St.  Paul's  road  for 
many  miles,  was  connected  with  the  great  Apostle  of 
Iconium.  So  far  as  I  could  learn,  no  other  cult  of  St.  Philip 
exists  near  Konia  except  on  the  mountain,  where  he  is  cer- 
tainly the  successor  and  heir  of  a  pagan  deity. 

3.  St.  Eustathius  has  a  small  church  on  the  western  out- 
skirts of  Konia:  it  is  of  late  mediaeval  or  early  modern 
time  and  possesses  little  architectural  interest,  except  that 
it  is  restored  or  rebuilt  from  an  older  church.  How  the 
worship  of  St.  Eustathius  was  become  connected  with 
Iconium,  it  is  impossible  to  tell.  According  to  the  legendary 
biography,  which  is  quite  untrustworthy,  Eustathius  was 
the  Christian  name  given  at  baptism  to  an  official  at  Rome 
under  Trajan.  He  was  converted  through  the  appearance 
of  Christ  to  him  when  he  was  hunting ;  and  his  wife  and 
two  sons  followed  his  example.     In  order  to  avoid  partici- 


37^  IV.   Iconium 


pation  in  the  celebration  of  Trajan's  Persian  victories,  he 
fled  by  ship  to  Egypt  with  his  family.  He  was  expelled 
from  the  ship,  and  came  to  a  place  named  Badyssus,  where 
he  lived  fifteen  years,  when  he  was  brought  to  Rome  and 
roasted  with  his  wife  and  sons  in  a  brazen  bull,  like  that  of 
Phalaris  (Acta  Sanctorum,  20th  September,  p,  123). 

This  Iconian  cult  is  an  enigma;  the  celebration  of  the 
festival  on  20th  September  distinguishes  it  from  the  wor- 
ship of  St.  Eustochius  of  Lystra  and  Vasada  on  23rd  June 
(p.  344) ;  yet  the  Bollandists  have  remarked  on  the  possi- 
bility of  confusion  between  the  two  names ;  but  I  found 
out  nothing  further  regarding  it.  It  is  noteworthy  that  the 
name  Badyssos  is  distinctly  Anatolian  in  type. 

4.  St.  George  of  the  Car,  Araba-Yorgi,  is  a  local  form  of 
St.  George  of  Cappadocia,  the  patron  Saint  of  England. 
The  reason  of  his  association  with  the  waggon  at  Iconium 
I  cannot  explain  from  Christian  causes.  Saints  on  horse- 
back are  common ;  but  a  saint  on  a  car  is  unknown  to  me. 
This  St.  George  on  the  Car  is  a  remarkable,  and  so  far  as 
my  knowledge  goes,  unique  figure.  He  is  apparently  a 
revival  of  the  Sun-God,  Helios,  who  was  worshipped  on 
mountain-tops,  and  who  generally  takes  in  Greece  the 
Christianised  form  of  St.  Elias,  the  saint  usually  worshipped 
on  the  summit  of  hills.  Helios  was  the  god  on  the  car ; 
the  usual  representation  of  him  shows  him  in  a  four-horse 
chariot.  On  the  mountain  five  hours  north  of  Iconium  St. 
George  takes  the  place  which  in  Greece  was  given  to  St. 
Elias. 

The  festival  of  Araba-Yorgi  on  23rd  April  is  celebrated 
on  a  mountain  above  Ladik.  I  have  not  visited  the  spot, 
but  it  seems  to  be  not  far  from  Sizma,  and  the  cult  may  be 
regarded  as  the  Christianised  form  of  the  religion  of  the 


X.    The  Christian  Cults  of  Iconium  379 

Zizimene  Mother.  On  this  mountain  at  sunrise  milk  and 
water  flow  in  a  dry  place :  such  is  the  story  told  me  by  a 
Greek  who  had  not  himself  been  present  at  the  annual 
miracle.  The  legends  of  St.  George  may  be  found  in  the 
Acta  Sanctorum,  23rd  April,  p.  123  fif.     (See  Plate  XII.) 

The  Christian  festival  takes  place  at  sunrise  on  23rd  April, 
when  a  new  year  and  a  new  summer  are  beginning.  That  milk 
should,  on  this  occasion,  flow  in  a  dry  place  is  a  familiar  pheno- 
menon in  pagan  religion,  an  illustration  of  the  bounty  and 
power  of  the  god.  Usener  has  collected  examples  of  this 
religious  belief  (as  Professor  Strzygowski  reminds  me)  in  an 
article  on  "  Milk  and  Honey,"  printed  in  the  Rheinisches 
Museum,  1902,  p.  177  fif.  In  the  panegyris  on  the  mountain 
north  of  Iconium  (if  my  informant  is  correct),  water  takes  the 
place  of  honey  ;  but  in  a  land  where  water  is  so  precious,  and 
where  artificial  irrigation  is  absolutely  necessary  for  agricul- 
ture, a  bountiful  flow  of  water  was  as  valuable  and  divine  a 
gift  as  nectar  or  honey.  In  fact  there  is  a  great  ancient  dam 
for  storing  water,  a  work  of  wonderful  size,  in  the  plain  on 
the  north  side  of  the  mountain,  some  hours  east  of  Laodiceia. 
Usener  has  given  many  examples  of  the  effect  which  this 
old  pagan  belief  exercised  on  Christian  ritual,  where  it  even 
affected  in  some  cases  the  Eucharist,  so  that  bread  and  wine 
with  milk  and  honey  were  given  to  the  communicants. 

Besides  these  four  popular  festivals  (all  doubtless  Chris- 
tianised forms  of  older  pagan  feasts),  there  are  many  churches 
and  holy  places  which  are  indubitably  survivals  of  Byzantine 
cults. 

Amphilochius  was  made  Archbishop  of  Iconium,  when  it 
was  raised  from  the  position  of  second  city  of  the  Province 
Pisidia  to  be  metropolis  of  the  new  Province  Lycaonia, 
about  371  A.D.     He  retained  a  high  place  in  the  veneration 


380  IV.   Iconium 


of  the  Iconian  populace,  probably  not  so  much  on  account 
of  his  literary  eminence  and  personal  character,  as  because 
of  his  opposition  to  the  Arians  and  support  of  Basil.  The 
firm  hold  which  the  struggle  against  the  Arians  had  on  the 
popular  mind  is  shown  by  the  inscriptions  on  a  Cappadocian 
rock-church,  specimens  of  which  are  published  in  the  Supple- 
mentary Papers  of  the  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Hellenic 
Studies,  i.,  p.  22.  These  rock-churches  are  certainly  much 
later  than  the  time  of  Basil  and  Amphilochius ;  yet  they 
apostrophise  the  Arian  Emperor  Valens  as  if  he  were  still 
living.  Besides  the  shrine  in  the  monastery  of  St.  Chariton, 
St.  Amphilochius  has  a  church  on  the  acropolis  of  Iconium, 
which  is  architecturally  the  oldest  and  the  most  interesting  in 
the  city  (Plate  XIV.).  The  quaint  legend  connected  with 
the  transformation  of  the  church  into  its  present  form  is  told 
in  Patdine  and  Other  Studies,  p.  1 70  f. 

Thekla  was  the  earliest  Iconian  saint.  Her  name  is  a 
common  personal  name  in  Lycaonian  inscriptions  of  the 
fourth  and  fifth  centuries,  and  has  been  given  to  one  of  the 
twin  peaks  near  Konia,  which  rises  behind  the  village  of 
Sille.  At  the  southern  edge  of  the  ravine  in  which  the 
village  stands,  also,  there  is  a  ridge  of  rocks  in  which  the 
place  is  pointed  out  where  Thekla  was  received  into  the 
sheltering  bosom  of  the  mountain.  On  the  opposite  side  of 
the  ravine  is  a  rocky  hillock  that  bears  the  name  of  the 
Syrian  Saint  Marina.  The  worship  of  Thekla  has  its  origin 
not  in  the  historical  personage,  but  in  the  desire  of  the 
Anatolian  people  for  a  female  impersonation  of  the  Divine 
power.^^  The  same  feeling  leads  to  the  worship  of  St. 
Marina,  and  above  all  to  that  of  the  Virgin  Mother  of  God, 
the  Panagia,  who  has  a  church  in  Sille,  besides  her  shrine  in 
the  monastery  of  St.  Chariton.     She  had  also  a  church  at 


Tlie    CInirch    of    St.    Amphilochius    at    Iconium. 


X.    The  Christian  Cults  of  Iconium  381 

Konia  on  the  way  out  to  St.  Eustathius  ;  but  it  fell  into 
ruin,  and  has  disappeared.  Plate  XI,  shows  the  twin  peaks 
of  St.  Philip  and  St.  Thekla  rising  behind  Konia  (p.  272). 

There  is,  moreover,  a  cult  of  St.  Georg-e  of  old  standing 
at  Konia,  and  a  church  of  the  Holy  Transfiguration  on  the 
acropolis.  The  great  mosque  of  Ala-ed-din  on  the  acropolis 
is  also  said  to  be  a  renovated  church  of  St.  Sophia ;  but 
this  seems  a  little  doubtful. 

A  garden  called  Aimanas,  on  the  south  side  of  Iconium, 
perhaps  retains  the  name  of  Ai  (Hagios)  Mannes,  a  martyr 
mentioned  in  an  inscription  on  a  column  in  the  Mosque  of 
Ala-ed-din. 

At  Sille  there  is  a  church  of  the  Archangel  Michael,  the 
construction  of  which  is  attributed  by  tradition  to  Constantine 
and  Helena.  But  Michael,  the  commander  of  the  heavenly 
hosts  and  protector  of  the  Christians,  was  more  probably 
introduced  into  the  worship  of  Iconium  in  the  time  of  the 
Arab  wars,  when  the  populace  turned  to  St.  Michael  the 
Stratelates  as  their  saviour  during  the  terrible  raids  made 
every  year  by  the  Moslems.  There  are  also  churches  or  holy 
places  of  the  Prophet  Elias,  of  Ayios  Panteleemon  and  of 
St.  George,  and  a  place  called  Ayanni  (St.  John)  close  to 
St.  Marina. 

These  remains  of  Iconian  ecclesiasticism  take  us  back, 
not  to  early  Christianity,  but  to  the  Byzantine  time,  the  fifth 
century  or  later.  There  is  not  a  trace  of  anything  that  can 
be  called  early ;  even  the  hills  of  St.  Thekla  and  St.  Philip 
are  probably  connected  rather  with  Byzantine  superstition 
and  the  rehabilitation  of  paganism  in  Christian  form  than 
with  the  real  histoiical  personages  whose  name  they  bear 
The  one  fact  that  remains  in  the  local  legend  of  St.  Thekla 
is  that  she  was  received  into  the  rock  ;  an  evident  piece  of 


382  IV.   Iconium 


old  pagan  belief.  The  Panagia  cult  was  doubtless  later 
than  the  Council  of  Ephesus,  43 1  A.D. ;  and  that  of  St, 
Amphilochius  is  evidently  later  than  his  death,  about  400 
A.D.,  perhaps  a  good  deal  later. 

Considering  the  character  of  the  Mevlevi  Dervish  estab- 
lishment, which  is  in  many  respects  non-Mohammedan,  and 
has  (as  we  saw)  a  connection  with  the  monastery  of  St. 
Chariton,  it  is  probable  that  their  sacred  centre  with  its 
splendid  pile  of  buildings  (shown  in  Plate  XIII.)  has  taken 
the  place  of  a  Christian  foundation.  The  holy  colour  of  the 
Mevlevi  is  not  the  Moslem  green,  but  the  Christian  blue. 
They  do  not  regard  themselves  as  debarred  from  drinking 
the  juice  of  the  grape,  but  openly  and  publicly  offer  and 
drink  wine. 

It  is  disappointing  that  in  a  place  where  the  Christian 
power  was  continuous  and  the  tradition  unbroken  from  the 
earliest  time,  there  should  be  such  an  utter  want  of  early 
memory.  The  fact  forms  one  more  proof  to  confirm  the 
general  opinion  that  the  Byzantine  period  was  divided  by  an 
untraversable  gulf  from  the  true  old  Christian  tradition,  or 
rather  that  the  old  tradition  was  overlaid  with  a  vast 
stratum  of  paganising  superstition  of  a  local  Anatolian 
character,  which  had  never  been  eradicated  from  the  minds 
of  the  uneducated  native  population.  The  Orthodox  church 
lost  its  hold  on  education.  The  unchanging  East  remained  : 
all  else  had  proved  evanescent  and  transitory. 


PART  V. 
DERBE. 


DERBE. 

The  determinaiiow  ct  tht  exact  site  of  Derbe  was  for  a  long 
time  a  most  serious  want  in  the  geography  of  the  New 
Testament.  In  a  general  way  the  situation  was  practically 
certain,  and  the  credit  for  first  pointing  it  out  belongs  to  my 
friend  Professor  Sterrett,  now  of  Cornell  University,  who 
has  done  so  much  to  pave  the  way  towards  a  right  know- 
ledge of  the  topography  of  this  whole  country.  The  terri- 
tory of  all  these  Lycaonian  cities  was  extensive,  and  must 
have  been  dotted  over  with  villages,  which  stood  in  the  same 
relation  to  the  city  as  we  have  described  above  in  the  case 
of  Iconium.^  The  territory  of  Derbe  was  on  the  extreme 
south-eastern  edge  of  the  Lycaonian  plain.  It  was  bounded 
on  the  west  by  the  Isaurian  hilly  country,  and  on  the  south 
by  the  Taurus  mountains.  Perhaps  it  included  a  consider- 
able tract  of  the  mountain  land ;  but  so  far  as  we  saw  the 
nearest  mountains  in  ascending  one  of  the  front  hills  of  a 
spur  of  Taurus,  they  are  singularly  rough,  rocky,  and  value- 
less— in  contrast  with  many  parts  of  Taurus  and  other 
mountain  regions  of  Asia  Minor,  where  the  glens  are  often 
productive  and  valuable.  Further  back  among  the  mountains, 
when  the  broad,  lofty  plateau  of  Taurus  is  reached,  these 
uplands  are  probably  much  more  valuable;  but  there  we 
come  to  another  land,  and  pass  beyond  the  limits  of  Derbe, 
which  was  essentially  a  city  of  the  Lycaonian  plain  (as  Strabo 
describes  it),  and  not  of  the  Taurus  mountain-region.     The 

(385)  25 


386  V.   Derbe 

site  of  the  city  must  lie  either  in  the  plain  or  on  one  of  the 
front  peaks  of  Taurus  commanding  the  plain. 

On  the  east  the  land  of  Derbe  was  bound  by  the  two 
Lycaonian  cities  of  Laranda  (which  now  bears  the  name  of 
the  Seljuk  prince  Karaman,  and  continues  to  be,  as  it  was 
under  the  Romans,  the  principal  city  of  the  whole  region) 
and  Ilistra  (which  still  retains  its  ancient  name).  On  the 
west,  as  Strabo  says,  Derbe  bordered  on  the  I  saurian  country ; 
on  the  north-west  it  touched  the  territory  of  Iconium,  and 
on  the  north-east  that  of  Barata,  the  city  of  the  Black 
Mountain  (the  volcanic  mass  of  Kara-Dagh,  which  rises  like 
an  island  in  the  Lycaonian  plain).  The  exact  limits  towards 
Iconium  are  unknown.  Towards  Barata  we  followed  the 
boundary  stones  for  a  considerable  distance.  This  line  of 
demarcation  is  unique  in  my  experience,  so  far  as  its  extent 
ds  concerned  :  even  single  boundary  stones  are  comparatively 
rare,  and  are  mostly  of  Roman  time,  but  here  we  have  a  line 
extending  for  several  miles  with  no  break  worthy  of  notice. 
It  consists  of  a  long  series  of  stones  at  intervals  of  about  1 50 
feet.-  Most  of  the  stones  are  from  one  to  two  feet  high, 
some  are  flat,  a  {Q.vf  are  not  visible,  being  presumably  covered 
by  the  soil  and  sparse  scrub  of  the  plain. ^  On  the  stoneless, 
dry,  dead  level  soil  of  the  plain,  the  line  of  the  boundary 
stones  is  quite  conspicuous  ;  and  even  where  they  now  barely 
protrude  above  the  soil,  examination  by  the  aid  of  the 
spade  would  probably  prove  that  they  have  been  carried  to 
the  spot  and  placed  there  by  the  hand  of  man. 

A  few  stones  belonging  to  a  similar  series  of  termini  were 
discovered  in  1901  in  Pisidia.  The  material  is  harder  in 
them,  and  they  retain  the  original  Latin  numbers,  showing 
that  they  were  placed  in  the  Roman  time.  They  probably 
marked  the  boundary  between  the  Colonia  Parlais  and  the 


V.  Derbe  387 

Antiochian  estates,  which  passed  from  the  god  to  the  kings 
and  from  them  into  the  possession  of  Augustus  and  his 
successors.'* 

The  Lycaonian  line  of  stones  marks  the  limit  between 
Derbe  and  Barata,  and  was  probably  placed  in  the  period 
when  Derbe  was  a  frontier  city  of  the  Roman  Empire,  either 
under  Augustus  soon  after  25  B.C.,  or  under  Claudius  soon 
after  41  B.C.  (assuming  that  the  bounds  were  settled  at  the 
beginning  of  one  or  other  of  the  two  periods) ;  and  the  latter 
is  more  probable,  as  Claudius  directed  special  attention  to 
this  district  and  granted  both  to  Iconium  and  to  Derbe  the 
honourable  title  of  "Claudian".  The  line  would  have  been 
the  boundary  of  Roman  territory  from  25  B.C.  to  74  a.d.,  if 
the  Kara-Dagh  was  included  in  the  part  of  Lycaonia  which 
was  granted  to  King  Archelaus  from  25  B.C.  to  17  A.D.,  and 
to  King  Antiochus,  41-74  A.D.  But  while  this  assignment  is 
quite  probable,  it  is  very  far  from  certain ;  and  in  the  map 
attached  to  a  detailed  topographical  study  of  Lycaonia* 
I  indicated  the  doubt  by  making  the  boundary  pass  through 
the  city  of  Barata  and  along  the  crest.  The  title  may  have 
perhaps  been  bestowed  when  the  demarcation  of  Roman 
territory  (with  Imperial  properties  involved)  as  well  as  of 
the  two  cities  was  made.     (See  p.  360.) 

The  boundary  line  crosses  the  Bagdad  railway  between 
the  stations  of  Arik-Euren  and  Mandasun.  Only  a  few 
stones  can  be  seen  west  of  the  railway ;  but  on  the  eastern 
side  they  stretch  for  several  miles  straight  to  a  black  volcanic 
cone  called  Davdha-Dagh,  which  protrudes  from  the  plain 
south  of  Kara-Dagh.  We  did  not  follow  them  the  whole 
way,  as  no  mark  of  any  kind  could  be  seen  on  any  of  the 
first  seventy ;  and  the  material  is  so  poor  and  liable  to 
disintegration  that  marks  could  not  be  expected  to  last  long. 


388  V.   Derbe 

Mr.  Mackensen,  the  Director  of  Construction  of  the  Bagdad 
Railway,  first  mentioned  to  me  the  existence  of  this  hne  of 
stones,  for  which  he  desired  an  explanation ;  and  he  made 
one  of  his  engineers  mark  them  on  a  survey  plan  of  the 
railway  from  Konia  onwards,  which  he  kindly  gave  me. 
But  even  without  the  plan,  no  traveller  who  crossed  the 
boundary  could  have  failed  to  observe  the  long  straight  line 
of  stones.  The  fact  that  it  remained  unobserved  until  Mr. 
Mackensen  noticed  the  stones  and  wished  to  understand 
their  purpose,  was  because  none  of  the  principal  lines  of  road 
crosses  or  goes  near  the  line,  and  therefore  no  traveller  came 
within  sight  of  them.  This  is  not  the  only  case  in  which  the 
railway,  by  diverging  from  the  commonly  used  lines  of  road, 
has  brought  interesting  memorials  of  ancient  life  within  the 
range  of  knowledge.  Any  one  who  now  travels  by  the 
Bagdad  Railway,  must  be  struck  with  this  boundary  line,  if 
he  watches  the  country,  instead  of  devoting  his  attention  to 
a  guide-book  or  a  novel. 

The  thin  low  scrub  which  covers  the  plain  is  characteristic 
of  Lycaonia  generally.  Looking  from  a  little  distance,  one 
might  imagine  that  the  ground  was  thinly  covered  with  grass ; 
but  there  is  in  reality  hardly  anywhere  a  blade  of  grass  on 
the  plain,  but  only  low-growing  plants  of  several  kinds, 
mostly  sweet-smelling,  the  commonest  of  which  is  like  thyme. 
But,  wherever  there  is  a  slight  depression  in  the  level  of  the 
plain  with  signs  of  underground  moisture  near  the  surface, 
grass  grows  more  or  less  luxuriantly.  Sheep  and  goats  find 
good  food  in  these  shrubs ;  and  the  plain  is  still  traversed  by 
immense  flocks  of  these  animals,  as  Strabo  describes  it, 
when  it  gave  pasture  to  the  great  herds  owned  by  Amyntas, 
the  last  king  of  Galatia.  We  must  understand  that  the  flocks 
passed,  with  the  rest  of  his  inheritance,  to  Augustus  and  the 


V.   Derbe  389 

succeeding  Roman  Emperors  and  formed  part  of  their  vast 
properties  in  Asia  Minor. 

The  most  striking  natural  feature  of  the  land  of  Derbe 
is  the  lofty  conical  peak,  8,000  feet  or  more  in  height  and 
snow-clad  until  after  the  end  of  June,  which  overhangs  it 
on  the  south.  This  beautiful  mountain  is  conspicuous  in 
the  view  from  Iconium  and  most  parts  of  Lycaonia,  until 
one  crosses  Boz-Dagh  and  gets  into  northern  Lycaonia ; 
and,  if  one  goes  far  enough  north,  it  again  rises  into  view 
above  the  bare,  bald  ridge  of  Boz-Dagh.  It  is  called  fladji- 
Baba,  "  Pilgrim  Father,"  a  name  in  which  the  imagination 
of  some  of  the  modern  Greeks  in  Lycaonia  finds  a  remini- 
scence of  the  travels  of  St,  Paul ;  nor  can  any  one  regard  as 
impossible  the  theory  that  the  Turkish  name  is  a  translation 
of  a  Pauline  name  attached  to  the  mountain  in  the  Christian 
time.  We  remember  that  the  conical  peak,  about  5,300  feet 
high,  which  is  the  most  striking  natural  feature  beside 
Iconium,  bears  among  the  Greeks  of  Konia  the  name  of  St. 
Philip,  and  that  this  name  must  be  regarded  as  a  relic  of 
Byzantine  nomenclature,^  and  may  fairly  be  treated  as 
evidence  that  Iconian  tradition  made  Philip  travel  from 
Palestine  to  Hierapolis  and  Ephesus  by  land  and  not  by 
sea.  We  remember  also  that  Ephesus  stretched  from  the 
hill  of  St.  John  to  the  hill  of  St.  Paul.  We  remember  again 
the  probable  reminiscence  of  the  journey  of  St.  Paul  across 
Pisidia  contained  in  the  modern  name  Bavlo.  In  fact,  it 
needs  no  proof,  since  many  examples  are  known,  that  there 
was  a  tendency  in  Anatolia  during  the  Christian  period  to 
regard  certain  prominent  peaks  as  endowed  with  something 
of  the  nature  and  personality  of  the  Apostles,  over  whose 
travels  they  had  stood  as  silent  witnesses.  Doubtless  the 
sacred  character  thus  attributed  to  these  peaks  had  belonged 


390 


V.   Derbe 


to  them  long  before  the  Christian  period,  and  the  Apostle  in 
each  case  merely  took  the  place  of  an  older  deity  to  whom 
the  peak  had  previously  been  consecrated  :  so,  for  example, 
the  hill  of  St.  John  at  Ephesus  had  belonged  to  the  Goddess 
of  Ephesus,  the  hill  of  St,  Paul  to  Hermes.  We  are  in  pre- 
sence of  the   same  phenomenon  which  constantly  attracts 


s'      to' 

Fig,  49. — Paul  the  Martyr  of  Derbe. 


our  attention  in  Asia  Minor,  viz.,  the  continuity  of  religious 
belief  and  the  permanent  attachment  of  religious  awe  to 
special  localities,  to  hills,  to  hot  springs,  to  great  fountains, 
and  to  other  places  of  various  kinds,  where  the  Divine  power 
was  most  clearly  manifested  to  men,^    (See  Plate  XV.) 


V.   Derbe  391 

In  the  territory  of  Derbe  remains  of  city  life  are  chiefly 
collected  along  the  southern  border  of  the  plain,  and  the 
site  of  the  actual  town  must  be  looked  for  in  this  part. 
They  begin  on  the  east  at  Bossala  Khan,  under  the  shadow 
of  the  "  Pilgrim  Father,"  an  early  Turkish  building  with 
some  wretched  huts  around  it,  and  extend  at  intervals  for 
about  seven  miles  west,  to  a  mound  called  Gudelisin.  Losta, 
a  village  about  two  miles  west  of  Bossala,  contains  a  great 
many  relics  of  the  late  Roman  and  early  Byzantine  time ; 
and  several  rising  grounds  between  Bossala  and  Gudelisin 
are  crowned  with  groups  of  scattered  blocks  of  cut  stone, 
sometimes  covered  with  Greek  inscriptions.  The  most  in- 
teresting of  these  groups  is  on  a  sloping  ridge,  gently  rising 
from  the  plain  about  a  mile  and  a  half  west  of  Losta.  Here 
there  must  have  stood  a  church  of  very  large  size,  and  pro- 
bably other  buildings  of  early  Byzantine  time.  The  hillock 
may  be  regarded  as  the  site  of  an  ecclesiastical  foundation, 
whose  character  is  to  be  gathered  from  the  following  in- 
scription : — 


Nounnos 

THovvvoi 

and  Vale- 

Kol Ova\4' 

rius  decor- 

plOS iK6(T- 

ated  Pau- 

lir\<rav  Xlav- 

lus  the  Mar- 

\ov rhv  Mdp- 

tyr 

Tvpav 

in  remembrance 

M.X. 

The  term  "  decorated "  was  used  commonly  in  Lycaonia 
during  the  third  and  fourth  centuries  (perhaps  even  during  a 
longer  period)  in  the  sense  of"  made  the  tomb  of".  This  in- 
teresting monument,  therefore,  marks  the  grave  of  a  Christian 
martyr,  whose  body  was  piously  honoured  by  two  of  his 
fellow-Christians,  perhaps  his  pupils.     The  explanation  given 


392  V.   Derbe 

by  the  Greeks  of  the  district^ — that  the  monument  com- 
memorates the  Apostle  Paul,  and  is  a  proof  that  he  passed 
this  way  and  was  remembered  here — cannot  be  accepted. 
We  have  here  the  inscription  on  a  real  grave,  not  on  a 
cenotaph.  Moreover,  the  monument  belongs  to  so  late  a 
period  that  it  cannot  be  connected  with  the  Apostle,  The 
lettering  is  of  the  third  century,  rather  than  of  the  first.^ 

This  monument  evidently  belongs  to  the  pre-Constantinian 
age,  while  Christianity  was  still  proscribed.  We  should 
hardly  be  justified  in  dating  it  so  late  as  the  time  of  Dio- 
cletian about  300  A.D.,  for  persecution  was  then  so  syste- 
matic and  energetic  that  the  corpse  of  a  martyr  could  not 
have  been  taken  and  buried  in  the  ordinary  fashion,  with  a 
tombstone  of  the  usual  type,  and  an  epitaph  openly  com- 
memorating the  facts  and  names.  The  incident  belongs 
either  to  one  of  the  minor  persecutions  of  the  third  century 
or  to  the  severe  but  short  persecution  by  the  Emperor 
Decius,  250  A.D.  Several  other  monuments  found  in  Phrygia 
have  been  interpreted  with  more  or  less  certainty  as  placed 
over  the  graves  of  martyrs  of  this  period  ;  but  in  none  of 
them  are  the  facts  stated  so  plainly  and  simply  as  on  this 
Lycaonian  gravestone. 

The  memory  of  Paul  the  Martyr  of  Derbe  had  not 
perished  when  Christianity  became  legalised  and  supreme 
in  the  country ;  and  this  incidentally  confirms  our  dating  in 
the  third  century,  for  martyrs  of  the  first  or  second  century 
seem  rarely  to  have  been  remembered  in  later  times  as 
real  personalities  at  the  place  of  their  burial.  The  hill 
became  the  seat  of  an  ecclesiastical  foundation,  including  a 
church  of  large  size,  and  the  pious  perhaps  chose  a  burial 
place  near  the  martyr,  according  to  a  general  Christian 
custom. 


V.   Derbe  393 

The  tombstone  of  Paul  the  Martyr  has  also  an  interest  of 
another  kind.  It  is  ornamented  with  a  pattern  of  the  regular 
Isaurian  type,  described  by  Miss  Ramsay  in  Studies  in  the 
History  of  the  Eastern  Provinces,  p.  23  ff :  a  central  pointed 
pediment  flanked  by  two  round  pediments,  all  supported  on 
four  columns.^"  Nounnos  and  Valerius  purchased  the  tomb- 
stone ready  made,  and  had  the  inscription  engraved  between 
the  central  columns.  As  the  letters  required  more  room 
than  the  space  afforded,  the  engraver  chiselled  away  part  of 
the  column  on  the  right  of  the  central  space,  and  some  of 
the  letters  extend  into  the  space  under  the  right  hand  pedi- 
ment. 

The  date  which  has  just  been  assigned  to  this  monument 
confirms  in  a  most  satisfactory  way  the  principle  of  dating 
which  was  stated  in  Miss  Ramsay's  article.  The  origin  of 
the  Isaurian  scheme  of  decoration  was  there  assigned  to  the 
middle  of  the  third  century.  As  the  tombstone  of  Paul  is, 
plainly  and  indubitably,  an  example  of  an  already  current 
and  conventional  type,  we  should,  on  the  principle  there 
stated,  be  bound  to  infer  that  it  belongs  to  a  date  rather 
later  than  250,  and  that  Paul  perished  in  a  minor  persecu- 
tion of  the  period,  perhaps  under  Valerian.  Such  seems  the 
most  probable  opinion  on  a  review  of  all  the  facts. 

The  wide  extent  of  the  ancient  remains  that  still  lie  in 
or  close  to  their  original  position  increases  the  difficulty  of 
fixing  the  precise  site  of  Derbe ;  and  the  only  view  that 
explains  the  facts  seems  to  be  that  there  were  more  sites 
than  one.  Either  Derbe  changed  its  place  (as  Ephesus  was 
moved  more  than  once  ^^),  or  there  were  two  towns  in  the 
locality,  with  sepulchral  monuments  lining  the  way  between 
them.  The  latter  opinion  is  confirmed  by  various  facts, 
and  the  name  of  a  second  town  can  be  determined.     This 


394  V.  Derbe 

was  Possala  or  Passola,^^  which  is  mentioned  as  a  bishopric 
in  some  documents  of  the  fourth  century,  and  later;  and 
the  name  has  remained  to  the  present  day  in  Bo^sala  Khan. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that  the  Khan  stands  exactly 
on  the  site  of  the  old  town.  The  Khan  is  on  the  direct 
road  from  Iconium  to  Pyrgos  (Cassaba)  and  Laranda,  and 
the  town  stood  a  little  way  west  from  the  road  at  Losta, 
which  is  plainly  an  ancient  site ;  but  doubtless  buildings 
and  graves  extended  along  the  whole  way  from  Losta  to 
the  Khan  and  the  great  road,  so  that  Losta  and  Bossala 
together  represent  one  ancient  town.  Why  the  Khan  should 
preserve  the  old  name  and  the  village  should  lose  it,  we 
cannot  tell  with  certainty:  it  is  one  of  those  freaks  of 
nomenclature  which  are  common.  The  centre  of  population 
may  have  changed  its  name  when  its  people  and  its  religion 
changed,  while  the  old  name  clung  to  the  now  separate 
Khan  on  the  road,  along  which  trade  passed,  and  where 
Christians  were  more  active  and  old  memories  were  stronger. 
In  Losta  an  old  Turkish  Tekke^  a  round  edifice  of  religious 
nature,  superior  in  architectural  character  and  in  sanctity 
to  a  mere  village  mosque,  indicates  the  continuity  of  religion 
between  the  ancient  Possala  and  the  modern  Losta.  We 
notice  all  over  the  country  that  (as  a  rule)  no  religious  fact 
was  lost  in  the  transition  from  Christianity  to  Moham- 
medanism in  Asia  Minor.  I  have  seen  many  cases  in  which 
the  only  evidence  of  life  and  human  nature  still  persisting 
on  an  otherwise  utterly  dead  and  deserted  ancient  site  is 
the  religious  awe  attaching  to  some  ruinous  old  Turkish 
sacred  building ;  the  name  of  some  Mohammedan  hero  or 
saint  is  remembered,  who  lies  buried  there,  for  in  Anatolian 
religion  there  seems  always  to  have  been  a  grave  at  the 
central  point  of  the  divinely  chosen  locality ;  and  the  inquir- 


V.  Derbe  395 

ing  traveller  can  detect  some  signs  of  a  belief  in  the  healing 
Divine  power  that  resides  at  the  sacred  spot.  At  such  places 
the  Byzantine  Christians  used  to  worship  by  the  grave  of  a 
saint,  and  the  Turks  now  show  the  grave  of  one  of  their 
"Dedes".  The  outward  appearance  and  the  sacred  name 
change ;  the  essential  religious  fact  persists.  Every  ancient 
city  had  its  religious  unity  centred  at  some  definite  locality, 
and  this  lives  on  in  the  minds  of  men,  and  the  sick  and 
ailing  remember  it  in  their  trouble,  while  the  strong  and 
healthy  pass  by  without  a  sign  of  recognition. 

Fully  five  miles  west  of  Losta  was  the  greatest  centre  of 
ancient  life  in  this  neighbourhood.  Here  at  and  around  a 
very  large  mound,  called  Gudelisin,  and  chiefly  on  the  low 
ground  west  of  the  mound,  there  are  plain  traces  of  an 
ancient  city  of  moderate  extent.  Most  of  the  Byzantine  or 
sarly  Turkish  buildings  which  were  seen  on  the  mound  by 
Professor  Sterrett  in  1885,  and  by  us  in  1890,  and  which  are 
dimly  visible  in  the  photograph  taken  then  by  my  travelling 
companion,  Mr.  Hogarth  (published  as  Plate  XVI.),  were  de- 
stroyed to  build  two  refugees'  villages,  one  on  the  south-east 
edge  of  the  mound,  and  the  other  at  a  distance  of  two  miles 
to  the  south-east,  soon  after  1890.  Even  the  larger  ancient 
cut  stones  have  mostly  been  carried  away.  Few  sites  in  the 
country  are  more  utterly  destroyed;  but  the  surface  is 
covered  with  fragments  of  pottery  of  all  periods  from  pre- 
Hellenic  time  onwards.  In  1901  my  wife  and  I  searched 
carefully  for  any  scrap  of  cut  stone  that  might  be  attributed 
to  the  Greek  or  tbc  early  Roman  period,  and  found  only  two, 
one  a  small  piece  of  an  Ionic  volute  in  marble,  the  other  a 
tiny  fragment  of  an  inscription  with  two  or  three  letters  in  a 
good  and  early  style  of  Cambridge.  In  1901  Mr.  Cronin 
and  Mr.  Wathen  made  some  excavation  in  the  mound  with 


396  V.   Derbe 

eight  workmen  employed  for  a  day  ;  but  they  were  not 
fortunate  in  finding  any  positive  result,  and  no  negative 
inference  follows  from  investigation  on  so  small  a  scale.  I 
believe  that  here  was  situated  the  Derbe  where  Antipater 
entertained  Cicero,  and  where  St.  Paul  found  refuge  and 
friends,  and  that  much  might  be  learned  by  excavation 
even  on  a  moderate  scale.  The  stones  and  inscriptions 
from  this  site,  which  have  been  carried  westwards  to  Elmasun 
three  miles  away,  are  Byzantine  and  late  Roman ;  and  the 
Greek  and  early  Roman  work,  still  more  the  pre-Greek 
remains,  may  yet  be  found  by  excavation  on  and  near  the 
mound. 

It  may  be  regarded  as  certain  that  Derbe  was  the  im- 
portant centre  of  population  in  the  Roman  period,  while 
Possala  was  originally  a  mere  village  of  the  territory  of 
Derbe.  A  Roman  road  led  from  Laranda  by  Derbe  and 
Lystra  to  Pisidian  Antioch.  A  Roman  milestone  on  this 
road  was  found  by  us  in  1 890  at  a  bridge  over  Tcharshamba 
River,  about  fifteen  miles  north-west  from  Derbe  and  twenty 
or  twenty-five  south  of  Lystra.  Others  have  been  found 
close  to  Lystra,  and  at  intervals  on  the  way  to  Antiocheia. 
Only  the  interval  of  about  twenty-five  miles  north-west  of 
Lystra  still  remains  unexamined  and  unknown :  ^"^  the  dis- 
covery of  a  milestone  in  this  section  would  be  a  welcome 
completion  to  our  knowledge.  Iconium  lay  off  the  line  of 
this  road,  which  was  built  by  Augustus  and  bore  the  name 
Via  Sebaste,  "  Imperial  Road,"  as  several  of  the  original 
milestones  show ;  this  term  was  translated  into  Greek  as 
^aaiXtKi^  6h6<i,  and  in  this  form  survives  in  the  legend  of 
Paul  and  Thekla.^*  The  original  purpose  of  the  road  was 
to  connect  the  two  Roman  Coloniae,  Antiocheia  and  Lystra, 
and  thus  to  strengthen  the  defence  of  the  Province  Galatia 


V.   Derbe  397 

against  the  Isaurian  and  Pisidian  mountaineers,  especially  the 
Homonades.  The  road  was  built  in  6  B.C.,  about  the  time 
when  Quirinius,  Legate  of  Syria,  was  engaged  in  subduing 
that  people. 

The  "  Imperial  Road  "  served  only  a  temporary  purpose, 
and  was  not  in  accordance  with  the  natural  conditions, 
Iconium  is  marked  out  by  nature  as  the  chief  centre  of  life 
and  trade  for  Lycaonia,  and  a  road  which  left  Iconium  to 
one  side  could  not  serve  the  needs  of  communication.  Thus 
the  direct  road  from  Laranda  to  Iconium  was  necessarily 
more  important  commercially  than  the  "  Imperial  Road"; 
and,  as  military  needs  became  unimportant  after  the  Isau- 
rian lands  were  pacified  and  formed  into  a  Roman  Province 
in  74  A.D.,  the  situation  of  the  village  Possala  near  the 
principal  road  gave  it  growing  importance.  But  Possala 
and  Derbe  were  always  recognised  as  parts  of  one  state, 
never  as  separate  cities.  The  same  bishop  administered 
both  places,  and  in  the  earlier  records  he  is  styled  Bishop 
of  Derbe,  in  the  later  of  Possala.  The  change  marks  the 
growth  of  the  latter  town  and  the  gradual  decay  of  Derbe. 
That  Possala  was  the  later  representative  of  the  decayed 
Derbe  is  recorded  in  a  gloss  attached  to  the  name  of  Derbe 
in  a  list  of  bishoprics  published  by  the  late  Professor  Gelzer  ; 
and  some  list  or  other  record  may  yet  be  found  in  which  the 
full  title  is  given  :  "  Bishop  of  Derbe  and  Possala"  (0  Akp^ 
I3r)<i  Kal  UocraXtav)}^ 

Professor  Sterrett's  view  approximated  to  that  which  has 
just  been  stated,  and  he  has  the  merit  of  being  the  first  to 
detect  that  this  locality  was  the  land  of  Derbe.  In  his 
Wolfe  Expedition  to  Asia  Minor,  p.  22,  he  says :  "  I  consider 
that  the  ruins  of  Bosola  and  Zosta,i^  being  so  near  together, 
represent  one  and  the  same  ancient  cit>.     This  city  I  should 


398  V.   Derbe 

like  to  call  Derbe.  Stephanus  Byzantinus  says  Derbe  was 
a  fortress  of  Isauria,  a  designation  which  would  suit  this  site 
well  enough.  Of  course,  little  can  be  argued  from  St.  Paul's 
itinerary  as  to  the  site  of  Derbe,  but  in  reading  the  account, 
one  is  impressed  with  the  idea  that  Derbe  cannot  be  far  from 
Lystra,  and  Lystra  has  been  found  to  be  at  Khatyn  Serai." 
The  objections  to  his  view  are  conclusive.  Not  merely  does 
it  leave  out  of  consideration  the  important  site  of  Gudelisin  ; 
it  also  ignores  the  companion  town  of  Possala.  Now,  if 
Losta  and  Bossala  represent  one  and  the  same  ancient  city, 
as  my  friend  and  I  are  agreed  in  thinking,  it  cannot  be 
doubted  that  Possala  was  the  city  in  question.  As  to  Gude- 
lisin, he  merely  says :  "  Here  a  large  mound,  in  every  way 
similar  to  the  Assyrian  Tels,  shows  many  traces  of  an  ancient 
village  or  town.  Most  of  the  remains  must  be  referred  to 
Christian  influence."  ^^  The  last  remark  is  true  of  the  build- 
ings which  he  saw  on  his  visit,  but  not  of  those  below  ground 
or  of  the  pottery  on  the  surface. 

Another  village  of  the  territory  of  Derbe  attained  some 
importance.  It  stood  about  four  miles  north  from  Derbe  on 
the  straight  road  to  Iconium ;  and  the  modern  name  Utch- 
Kilisse,  "  Three  Churches,"  together  with  the  ruins  of  some 
large  buildings,  prove  that  it  possessed  considerable  import- 
ance in  the  Byzantine  time.  The  place  is  now  an  uninhabited 
mass  of  ruins,  all  of  a  late  period,  so  far  as  they  are  visible 
above  ground  :  one  of  the  buildings  was  a  church.  Professor 
Sterrett,  who  discovered  these  remains,  appreciates  their 
character  rightly  (  Wolfe  Exped.,  p.  29).^^ 

The  description  of  the  roads  given  above  illustrates  well 
the  narrative  of  St.  Paul's  journeys.  On  his  second  journey 
he  came  from  Syrian  Antioch  (doubtless  through  the  Cilician 
Gates)  to  Derbe,  next  to  Lystra,  and  thence  to  Iconium, 


V.   Derbe  399 

which  was  about  eighteen  miles  north-north-east  of  Lystra 
and  a  h'ttle  way  off  the  "  Imperial  Road  "  to  Pisidian  Antioch. 
But,  on  the  first  journey,  he  fled  from  Pisidian  Antioch  along 
the  "  Imperial  Road  ".  According  to  the  legend  of  Paul  and 
Thekia  (as  interpreted  in  the  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire\ 
when  he  reached  the  point  where  a  branch  road  diverged  to 
Iconium,  a  few  miles  distant,  he  found  Onesiphorus  waiting 
for  him,  Onesiphorus,  who  had  been  warned  in  a  dream  of 
his  coming,  recognised  him  from  the  description  given  of  his 
personal  appearance,  and  invited  him  to  his  own  house, 
which  was  next  door  to  that  of  Thekla's  parents.  From 
Iconium,  Paul  fled  naturally  first  to  Lystra  and  thence  to 
the  more  distant  Derbe  (Acts  xiv.  6). 

Little  is  said  about  Derbe  in  the  Book  of  Acts,  and  little 
is  recorded  of  it  in  other  ancient  documents.  It  was  one  of  the 
rudest  of  the  Pauline  cities,  education  had  made  no  great 
progress  in  it,  and  therefore  it  was  not  fitted  to  produce  a 
strong  impression  on  the  history  of  the  Church  or  of  Asia 
Minor.  Its  inscriptions  are  late  in  date,  and  show  little  trace 
of  contact  with  the  Roman  world.  It  had,  however,  a  certain 
importance  about  the  time  of  St.  Paul  as  being  the  frontier 
city  on  a  Roman  "  Imperial  Road,"  and  therefore  a  station 
for  customs  and  frontier  dues  ;  ^^  and,  as  it  profited  so  much 
by  the  Imperial  system,  it  had  even  stronger  reasons  than 
most  other  Lycaonian  towns  for  strenuous  loyalty  to  the 
Empire  and  for  strong  Roman  feeling.  Owing  to  this 
temporary  importance  it  was  honoured  with  the  Imperial 
title  Claudio- Derbe ;  but  it  struck  no  coins  until  a  much 
later  period. 

Although  the  corns  of  Derbe  are  late,  they  may  be  quoted 
as  proofs  that  (jreek  ail  and  Greek  ways  were  not  alien  to 
the  city.     The  native  Lycaonian  inhabitants  were  educated 


400 


V.  Derbe 


in  tlie  Greek  language,  and  in  all  probability  regarded  them- 
selves as  Hellenes  in  virtue  of  their  education.  As  a  city 
on  one  of  the  great  roads,  many  traders  must  have  passed 
through  it  or  resided  in  it,  amongst  others  Jews.  There  is 
no  trace  of  any  refoundation  of  the  city,  at  which  Jews 
might  have  been  enrolled  in  a  Tribe  as  citizens ;  and  we 
may  probably  regard  the  Jews  of  Derbe  as  resident  aliens. 
The  bestowal  or  assumption  of  the  title  Claudian  Derbe 
does  not  imply  any  fundamental  change  in  the  constitution, 
such  as  took  place  at  Tarsus  in  B.C.  170  (see  Part  II.,  §  XI.) 


Fig.  50. — The  Heracles  of  Derbe :  coin  struck  under  the  Emperor  Antoninns. 

The  Heracles  of  Derbe  (Fig.  50)  is  a  Hellenised  form  0/ 
a  native  god,  and.  proves  nothing  as  to  real  Hellenisation 
of  the  religion.  Just  as  the  name  Heracleia  was  applier^ 
to  Cybistra,  not  because  the  Greek  god  was  worshipped 
there,  but  because  a  native  god  who  superficially  resembled 
Heracles  was  the  great  god  of  the  region — the  peasant-god 
who  is  represented  on  the  rock  at  Ibriz — so  Derbe  aD<5 
Iconium  and  many  other  Anatolian  cities  placed  Hentcles 
on  their  coins. 

But  other  types  are  more  indicative  of  Western  feeling, 


V.   Derbe 


401 


The  Good  Fortune  of  Derbe  (Fig.  51)  is  represented  en- 
tirely in  the  Roman  style ;  and  the  use  of  such  a  type  is 
a  proof  that  Roman  custom  was  not  unknown  in  Derbe. 
The  most  interesting  of  the  types  used  at  Derbe,  however, 
is  thoroughly  Hellenistic  ;  a  figure  of  Victory  writing  on 
a  shield,  which  she  balances  on  her  raised  left  knee.  The 
attitude  and  the  down-slipping  drapery  clinging  round  her 
middle  are  strikingly  like  the  Victory  of  Brescia  and  the 
so-called  Venus  of  Melos  (the  chief  ornament  of  the  Greek 
Galleries  in  the  Louvre),  which  was  certainly  adapted  from, 


FiQ.  51. — The  Good  Fortune  of  Derbe :  coin  of  the  Empress  Faustina  the 
Younger. 

if  it  should  not  actually  be  restored  as,  a  Victory  in  this 
attitude.  That  wings  should  be  added  in  the  coin  is  due  to 
the  striving  for  pictorial  effect.  The  figure  is  a  noble  and 
striking  one  in  Lycaonian  coinage,  and  may  confidently  be 
regarded  as  taken  from  a  statue  in  the  city  (Fig.  52). 

Claudio-Derbe  was  a  city  of  the  Province  Galatia  till  about 
A.D.  130-135,  when  it  was  incorporated  in  the  new  triple  Pro- 
vince of  the  "  Three  Eparchiae,"  Cilicia-Isauria-Lycaonia. 
An  inscription  of  the  third  century  at  Losta  was  dedicated 

to  the  Emperor  Gordian  by  the  three  Provinces  or  Eparchiae. *• 

26 


402  V.  Derbe 

During  this  period  Iconium  and  Lystra  continued  to  form 
part  of  the  Province  Galatia.  About  A.D.  295  the  "  Three 
Eparchies"  were  divided.  The  southern  part  of  Lycaonia 
(including  Derbe)  was  now  assigned  to  Isauria,  the  western 
and  central  part  (including  Iconium)  to  a  new  Province 
Pisidia ;  while  the  northern  towns  continued  attached  to  the 
Province  Galatia.  From  an  authority  of  the  fourth  century 
Stephanus  gathered  his  description  of  Derbe  as  "  a  fortress 
of  Isauria  ".  Finally,  about  372,  Lycaonia  was  made  a  Pro- 
vince by  itself,  and  Derbe  was  included  in  it. 


FiQ.  52. — Victory  writing  on  a  shield :  a  statue  at  Derbe.    Coin  struck  under 
the  Empress  Lucilla. 

One  more  point  requires  notice  regarding  the  site  of 
Derbe.  The  possibility  that  the  city  might  have  been  situ- 
ated on  one  of  the  hills  on  the  southern  edge  of  the  plain 
was  alluded  to  above.  We  inquired  carefully  into  this,  and 
learned  that  on  one  hill  only  are  there  any  ruins.  The 
second  hill  west  of  Hadji-Baba  htis  a  huge  lump  of  rock 
protruding  conspicuously  out  of  one  side  of  its  summit. 
This  was  described  to  us  as  covered  with  walls  and  houses, 
built  of  small  stones,  with  no  marble  and  no  inscriptions. 
The  description  did  not  suggest  any  hope  that  the  Roman 


V.   Derbe  403 

Derbe  could  have  been  situated  there,  but  rather  that  a 
Byzantine  fortress  had  been  built  on  this  lofty  point  during 
the  troubled  times  of  the  Arab  raids.  In  order  to  leave  no 
doubt  however,  we  ascended  the  hill.  The  Kale,  as  it  is 
called,  is  about  1,200  feet  above  the  plain.  The  ruins  cover 
an  oval  space  of  about  150  to  200  yards  long  by  80  to  100 
broad.  The  walls  are  not  Byzantine  work.  They  are  built 
of  small  stones,  splintered  off  the  native  rock,  entirely  uncut 
and  undressed.  The  stones  are  of  two  sizes.  The  larger 
stones  were  used  to  form  the  outer  and  inner  faces  of  the 
wall,  and  rarely,  if  ever,  measure  more  than  a  foot  in  any 
direction.  The  smaller  stones  were  mere  scraps,  piled 
loosely  in  to  fill  up  the  space  between  the  faces.  Not  a 
trace  of  mortar  or  any  other  binding  material  could  be  seen 
in  the  walls,  except  that  two  cisterns  for  holding  rain-water 
were  faced  inside  with  some  hard  kind  of  cement.  The 
small  size  and  wretched  character  of  the  fortress  and  the 
tiny  huts  of  stone  inside  it  were  enough  to  show  that  this 
was  not  Derbe.  But  the  work  is  early,  not  late.  The  im- 
pression of  date,  suggested  by  the  walls,  was  confirmed  by 
examination  of  the  numerous  fragments  of  pottery  scattered 
over  the  surface  of  the  ground.  Some  of  these  are  evidently 
pre-Hellenic,  belonging  to  a  class  which  is  found  widely 
over  ancietit  sites  in  Asia  Minor,  ornamented  with  alternate 
zones  of  darker  and  lighter  hue,  yellowish  or  brownish  in 
tint,  analogous  to  some  classes  of  early  Grecian  pottery 
which  are  roughly  and  not  quite  accurately  described  as 
Mycenaean  ;  others  are  certainly  of  Hellenistic  time. 

One  might  well  imagine  that  this  fortress  had  been  the 
first  stronghold  of "  the  robber  Antipater,"  as  Strabo  ex- 
pressively calls  him  in  his  brief,  incisive  way,  before  he 
succeeded  in  making  himself  master  of  Derbe,  about  60  B.C. 


404  V.   Derbe 

But  it  is  likely  to  be  even  earlier  in  origin,  and  may  have 
seen  the  city  of  Derbe  grow  ajid  decay  again. 

In  conclusion,  it  seems  right  to  add  that  the  merit  and 
thoroughness  of  Professor  Sterrett's  exploration  stand  out 
all  the  more  markedly,  when  one  remembers  that  two 
skilful  and  highly-trained  French  scholars  travelled  through 
the  same  country  about  the  same  time,  and  placed  Lystra 
at  Losta.  They  argued  partly  from  the  name  and  partly 
from  a  short  inscription  in  the  village  which  mentions 
"  Titus  and  Gaius,  brothers,  men  of  Lystra,"  as  the  archi- 
tects of  a  building.  Titus  and  his  brother,  however,  must 
have  carried  their  activity  and  skill  from  their  native  Lystra 
to  Possala.  Yet  the  wrong  identification  might  have  been 
accepted  on  this  very  specious  and  tempting  argument,  had 
not  Sterrett  found  conclusive  proof  of  the  true  position  of 
Lystra.     (See  p.  411.) 

Coins  of  Derbe  are  extremely  rare,  and  seem  to  exist  only 
in  the  cabinets  of  the  Biblioth^que  Nationale  at  Paris. 


PART  VI. 

LYSTRA. 


LYSTRA. 

§  I.    Situation  and  Character. 

The  modern  village  of  Khatyn-Serai,  the"  Lady's  Mansion," 
lies  in  the  acute  angle  formed  by  the  confluence  of  two  small 
streams,  which  flow  down  out  of  the  Orondian  and  the 
Isaurian  hill-country,  one  from  the  north-west,  the  other  from 
a  little  south  of  west.  The/  are  divided  by  low  hills,  which 
sink  very  gently  to  the  meeting  of  the  waters.  The  village 
lies  partly  on  the  point  of  the  hills,  partly  on  their  southern 
side.  The  water-supply,  unusually  lavish  for  the  Lycaonian 
land,  keeps  the  environs  green,  and  makes  the  trees  grow 
with  a  luxuriance  known  nowhere  else  in  Lycaonia,  except 
in  the  gardens  of  Konia  and  the  mountains  of  Kara-Dagh. 
Khatyn-Serai,  therefore,  suits  the  Eastern  taste  and  the 
Eastern  love  of  quiet  gardens  and  flowing  water  better  than 
any  other  village  of  Lycaonia;  and  doubtless  this  is  the 
reason  for  its  name.  Either  it  was  in  Seljuk  time  appropri- 
ated to  the  enjoyment  of  some  great  lady  (such  as  the 
Sultan's  mother  for  example),  or  the  name  has  a  quite 
general  sense,  "  Mansion  such  as  suits  a  lady ". 

Two  Turkish  bridges,  mainly  built  of  ancient  cut  stones, 
many  of  them  inscribed,  cross  the  two  streams,  one  on  the 
road  to  Iconium  and  the  north,  one  on  the  road  to  the 
south-east,  and  indicate  to  the  explorer,  as  he  approaches 
by  either  of  the  roads  along  which  travellers  come,  that  an 
ancient  city  lay  somewhere  close  at  hand.     The  actual  site 

(407) 


408«  VI.   Lystra 

lay  on  the  opposite  bank  of  the  northern  stream,  about  a 
mile  north-west  from  Khatyn-Serai,  on  a  small  elongated 
hill  in  the  centre  of  the  valley  and  in  the  low  ground  south 
and  east  of  the  hill. 

In  such  a  locality  as  this  a  centre  of  population  must 
always  have  existed.  It  is  constituted  by  nature  the  most 
charming  and  productive  site  in  the  northern  hill-region  of 
Isauria,  lying  near  the  open  Lycaonian  plain,  possessing  a 
considerable  extent  of  fertile  soil  in  the  valley  well  watered 
by  the  two  streams,  as  well  as  a  large  tract  of  low  hilly 
ground.  But  the  town  stands  apart  from  the  main  roads 
that  traverse  the  country  and  are  the  natural  paths  of  trade. 
The  valley  in  which  it  lies  is  secluded  and  restricted  in 
development :  a  great  city,  known  and  open  to  the  world, 
could  not  grow  in  so  sequestered  a  spot  The  site  is  marked 
out  by  nature  for  a  small  rustic  town,  where  the  people  and 
the  customs  would  be  national  not  cosmopolitan. 

Considering  the  character  of  almost  all  other  Pauline 
cities,  the  great  places  of  the  Eastern  world,  most  of  them 
centres  of  international  intercourse  and  progress,  one  must 
wonder  how  Lystra  came  to  be  one  of  the  list.  How  did 
the  cosmopolitan  Paul  drift  like  a  piece  of  timber  borne  by 
the  current  into  this  quiet  backwater  ?  Beroea  is,  of  all  the 
Pauline  cities,  the  one  most  closely  resembling  Lystra  in 
general  character,  a  small  rustic  town,  Macedonian  not 
cosmopolitan.  To  Beroea  Paul  retired  when  obliged  to 
leave  Thessalonica ;  but  as  we  know  from  himself,  he  was 
eager  to  return  at  the  earliest  opportunity,  and  Beroea  was 
perhaps  a  place  to  wait  in,  rather  than  an  object  in  itself. 
Lystra  may  perhaps  have  been  regarded  similarly  as  a 
place  of  refuge  for  the  moment  from  which  it  might  be 
possible  to  return  to  Iconium  (see  pp.  372-4).     Thus  Paul 


I.   Situation  and  Character  409 

and  Barnabas  came  to  be  settled  for  a  time  in  this  small 
Lycaonian  town,  which  in  respect  of  situation  is  not  unlike 
Barata  (as  described  in  the  Expositor,  Sept.-Oct.,  1907). 

Hence  also  it  is  natural  to  find  that  in  the  narrative  of 
Luke  Lystra  is  the  only  city  in  which  Paul  is  brought  into 
immediate  contact  with  the  uneducated  Anatolian  populace, 
ignorant  of  Hellenic  culture,  speaking  the  Lycaonian  tongue, 
though  not  wholly  ignorant  of  Greek,  for  the  Apostles 
appealed  to  them  in  that  language  with  some  effect,  and 
must  therefore  have  been  understood  by  many  of  them. 
But  the  striking  events  which  occurred  at  Lystra  are  associ- 
ated mainly  with  the  humbler  class  of  the  Lycaonian  popu- 
lace ;  and  it  is  the  only  city  of  Asia  Minor  in  which  a  native 
language  is  mentioned.  Here,  alone,  the  native  Anatolian 
gods  and  the  native  religion  are  confronted  with  the  new 
faith.  Everywhere  else  Paul's  address  was  directed  to  the 
classes  which  had  shared  to  some  degree  in  Greek  education 
and  were  familiar  with  the  Greek  tongue. 

The  adventures  of  the  two  Apostles  at  Lystra  have  already 
been  described  by  the  present  writer  in  St.  Paul  the  Traveller 
and  the  Roman  Citizen  in  some  detail,  and  it  seems  un- 
necessary to  repeat  what  is  said  there. 

Inasmuch  as  Iconium  ranked  itself  as  a  city  of  Phrygia, 
Lystra  and  Derbe  stood  forth  as  the  two  cities  of  Roman 
Lycaonia  in  the  time  of  St.  Paul.  Besides  them  there  was  a 
large  L)'caonian  territory  which  contained  no  constitutionally 
organised  city,  but  only  villages  of  the  Anatolian  type.  On 
the  west,  in  the  hill-region  of  Northern  Isauria,  there  were 
several  places  which  at  a  later  period  ranked  as  cities  and 
bishoprics,  but  at  that  time  they  either  were  reckoned  to 
Pisidia  or  ranked  only  as  villages.  On  the  east  Lycaonia 
contained   more  than   one  city ;  but  Laranda,   Ilistra   and 


4IO  VI.   Lystra 

others  were  not  in  Roman  territory.  They  were  part  of  the 
kingdom  of  Antiochus  IV.,  one  of  those  client-kings  who 
were  doing  the  work  of  governing  outlying  regions  and  pre- 
paring the  inhabitants  to  become  subjects  of  the  Empire  at 
a  later  date.  Accordingly,  when  it  is  said  in  Acts  xiv.  6 
that  Paul  and  Barnabas,  being  expelled  from  Iconium, 
"  fled  to  the  cities  of  Lycaonia,  Lystra  and  Derbe,  and  the 
region  round  about,"  this  is  exactly  equivalent  to  saying 
that  they  took  refuge  in  the  Roman  part  of  the  country  of 
Lycaonia,  in  which  there  were  two  cities  and  a  region  where 
the  Anatolian  village-system  prevailed :  in  the  technical 
language  of  politics  and  administration  the  Roman  part  of 
Lycaonia  was  called  Galatic  Lycaonia,  i.e.,  the  part  of 
Lycaonia  which  was  included  in  the  Province  Galatia.  The 
use  of  the  term  "region"  here  is  similar  to  that  which  was 
described  in  Part  IIL,  when  Antioch  was  called  the  centre 
of  a  "region"  (Acts  xiii.  49  and  inscriptions). 

In  this  territory,  Galatic  Lycaonia,  there  were  two  cities  : 
the  term  city  must  here  be  understood  in  the  strict  sense,  as 
a  self-governing  town  with  sovereign  rights  exercised  by 
elected  magistrates.  How  had  these  two  places  alone  been 
more  or  less  Hellenised  and  Romanised,  while  the  rest  re- 
mained of  the  ordinary  Anatolian  type  ? 

As  regards  Derbe,  we  have  seen  in  Part  V.  that  the 
change  was  due  to  the  Roman  Imperial  influence,  and  to 
the  importance  of  this  point  on  the  frontier  of  Roman 
territory,  which  made  it  a  customs-station  and  a  centre  of 
Roman  business  and  official  life. 

The  development  of  Lystra  was  due  to  its  being  selected 
as  the  seat  of  a  Roman  Colony,  which  required  the  con- 
struction of  a  Roman  road  to  connect  it  with  the  other 
Coloniae  and  especially  with  Antioch,  the  capital  of  Southern 


I.   Situation  and  Character  411 


Galatia.     This  road,  constructed  at  first  for  military  reasons, 
passed  near  the  real  trade-centre  of  Lycaonia,  viz.  Iconium ; 
and  thus  it  became  a  trade-route  as  it  was  continued  to  Derbe 
and  Laranda,  and  was  thereby  connected  with  Cilicia  and 
Syria.     It  was,  however,  never  more  than  a  secondary  road 
on  the  commercial  side,  and  its  military  importance  died  out 
as  the  mountain  tribes  were  subdued  and  the  country  became 
thoroughly  peaceful.     In  the  time  of  St.  Paul,  Lystra  was 
still  of  some  consequence  from  its  colonial  rank  ;  and  we  must 
suppose  that  both  Hellenes  and  the  uneducated  Lycaonians 
of  the  town  were  sensible  of  the  dignity  and  the  advantages 
derived  from  this  rank  and  from  the  Roman  road  (called  in 
inscriptions  and  in  the  Acts  of  Paul  and  Thekla  the  "  Im- 
perial Road  "),  which  connected  it  with  Antioch  on  the  one 
side  and  with  Derbe  on  the  other.     What  has  been  said 
above   regarding  the  influence  of  colonial    dignity  on  the 
prosperity  of  Antioch  and  on  the  minds  of  all  its  inhabitants 
applies  also  to  the  sister  Colony  of  Lystra,  though  in  a  much 
diminished  degree.     Not  merely  was  Antioch  a  capital  for 
the  southern  half  of  the  Province,  but  also  it  was  an  older 
foundation  than  Lystra.    Now  time  is  needed  to  plant  deeply 
and  strengthen  the  pride  of  city-dignity :  successive  genera- 
tions have  to  grow  up  with  this  consciousness  in  their  minds ; 
and  Lystra,  as  a  Colonia,  had  only  two  generations  to  look 
back  on,  while  Antioch  had  three.     We  must  therefore  infer 
that  Lystra  was  a  much  weaker  reflection  of  Antiochian 
feeling  and  municipal  pride. 

The  coins  of  Lystra  are  very  rare.  One  was  bought  on 
the  spot  by  Professor  Sterrett  in  1884 ;  and  his  discovery  of 
an  inscription  in  addition  to  the  coin  revealed  the  hitherto 
unknown  fact  that  Lystra  was  a  Roman  colony,  and  confirmed 
the  brilliant  conjecture  of  the  great  geographer  Leake  that 


412  VI.   Lystra 

it  was  situated  at  Khatyn-Serai:  Leake  travelled  in  1800, 
and  did  not  see  this  site.  In  company  with  the  late  Sir 
Charles  Wilson  I  visited  it  in  1882  for  one  night.  We  were 
on  the  outlook  for  some  evidence  to  test  Leake's  opinion; 
and  I  inferred  from  the  large  proportion  of  Latin  inscriptions 
that  a  Roman  Colonia  had  stood  on  this  site,  and  that  there- 
fore Lystra,  which  was  not  a  Colonia,  could  not  have  been 
situated  here.^  This  argument  supplies  a  good  example  of 
the  gradual  nature  of  discovery  and  of  the  way  in  which  an 
inference  which  at  first  seems  perfectly  conclusive  and  in- 
evitable may  be  set  aside  by  the  irony  of  fate  as  knowledge 
progresses.  Indirect  evidence  is  always  subject  to  this 
chance :  it  may  be  set  in  a  quite  different  light  by  new 
discoveries.  If  the  colonial  coins  of  Lystra  had  been  dis- 
covered a  few  years  earlier,  the  observation  that  Khatyn- 
Serai  was  the  site  of  a  Colonia  would  have  at  once  furnished 
the  needed  proof  that  Lystra  was  situated  here;  but  the 
idea  that  Lystra  could  have  been  a  Colonia  was  so  unimagined 
and  so  improbable  that,  when  I  communicated  Sterrett's 
discovery  of  the  first  colonial  inscription  to  the  greatest 
epigraphic  and  historical  scholar  in  Europe,  he  at  first  ex- 
pressed his  disbelief  in  the  trustworthiness  of  the  copy,  as 
the  copyist  was  then  unknown  to  him ;  and  it  was  only 
when  I  assured  him  that  the  copyist  was  known  to  me  as 
practised  and  reliable  that  he  began  to  think  of  the  con- 
sequences which  must  follow  from  Professor  Sterrett's  dis- 
covery. At  the  same  time  a  coin  published  by  the  late 
M.  Waddington  and  Sterrett's  new  coin  placed  the  matter 
beyond  the  reach  of  cavil  or  hesitation.  A  firm  footing  in 
Lycaonian  history  was  now  at  last  reached.  What  had  been 
dark  and  unintelligible  was  now  brought  within  the  range  of 
historical  study,  though  still  much  work  and  many  journeys 


I.   Situation  and  Character 


413 


were  needed  before  light  was  thrown  on  this  subject  in  an 
even  moderate  degree ;  and  much  still  remains  to  do,  before 
we  shall  be  able  to  see  clearly.  Excavation  at  Lystra  is 
urgently  needed  in  the  interests  of  history  and  of  New 
Testament  study ;  but  the  expense  would  be  very  consider- 
able, as  the  accumulation  of  soil  is  great  and  the  land  is 
agriculturally  valuable.  Moreover,  permission  to  excavate 
can  now  hardly  be  gained  except  through  strong  Govern- 
ment pressure,  and  Germany  is  the  only  country  in  Europe 


FiQ.  53._The  Founder  of  Colonia  Lystra  tracing  the  limits  of  the  new  city 
with  plough  drawn  by  a  yoke  of  bull  and  cow. 

which  habitually  makes  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  an 
interest  of  Government,"^  while  public  opinion  even  among 
scholars  in  our  country  is  entirely  devoid  of  interest  in  the 
life  and  fortunes  of  this  unimportant  Lycaonian  town  and 
third-rate  Roman  Colonia, 

The  colonial  character  of  Lystra  is  similar  to  that  of 
Antioch,  only  less  marked  and  more  evanescent.  But,  as  we 
saw  on  p.  280,  Lystra  presented  a  statue  of  Concord  to  her 
sister  Colony  of  Antioch,  somewhere  about  the  end  of  the 
second  or  the  beginning  of  the  third  century.     A  gift  like 


414 


VI.   Lystra 


this  implies  that  the  smaller  and  poor  colony  still  retained 
some  pride  in  her  rank  and  her  Roman  character ;  and  yet 
so  faded  was  her  memory  of  her  Roman  dignity  that  the 
inscription  was  written  in  Greek,  and  Latin  had  evidently 
ceased  to  be  spoken  or  known  in  Lystra.  The  few  coins  of 
Lystra  are  all  colonial.  Any  little  importance  which  the 
city  possessed  arose  from  its  connection  with  the  Roman 
State  and  the  Roman  administration  and  defence  of  the 
Province  Galatia.  But  with  its  foundation  as  a  Colonia,  by 
Augustus,  probably  through  Cornutus  Aquila,  governor  of 


FiQ.  54. — The  City  goddess  of  Lystra  sitting  on  the  rocks,  with  the  crescent 
on  her  head  and  corn-ears  in  her  hand ;  a  river  at  her  feet. 

Galatia  about  B.C.  6,  its  coinage  and  its  rank  as  a  city  of 
the  Roman  world  began.  The  coins,  so  far  as  yet  known, 
belong  to  the  reigns  of  Augustus,  Titus,  Trajan  and  Marcus 
Aurelius.  Latin  and  Roman  ideas  probably  ceased  about 
the  end  of  the  last-named  Emperor's  reign  (see  p.  281). 

Yet  the  only  strictly  Roman  type  is  the  one  shown  in 
Fig.  53,  the  founder  ploughing  the  furrow  that  marked  the 
limits  of  the  Roman  Colonia,  as  already  described  (p.  365). 
The  other  known  types  are  more  or  less  Hellenic  in  charac- 
ter, either  Hellenised  representations  of  religious  ideas,  Of 


I.   Situation  and  Character 


415 


imitations  of  works  of  Hellenistic  art.  In  Fig.  54  we  have 
an  example  of  the  influence  of  the  famous  statue  of  Syrian 
Antioch  by  the  sculptor  Eutychides,  a  type  which  spread 
through  Tarsus  into  Lycaonia  and  Cappadocia,  Fig.  55 
shows  the  same  type  at  Barata ;  and  it  occurs  also  at  Tyana. 
This  diffusion  of  an  artistic  type  from  Tarsus  to  the  north 
and  north-west  recalls  and  supports  the  theory  advanced 
first  by  the  writer  in  the  Revue  des  Etudes  Anciennes,  1901, 
p.  358,  and  quoted  in  Studies  in  the  Art  and  History  of  the 
Eastern  Provinces^  p.  60,  that  a  widespread  type   in  the 


FiQ.  55. — The  City  goddess  of  Barata  sitting  on  the  rocks  with  a  river  at  her 
feet.     She  carries  the  cornucopia,  and  in  her  right  hand  an  uncertain  object. 

earliest  Christian  art  of  Lycaonia  and  Isauria  came  from 
Tarsus  along  the  same  path.  Professor  Strzygowski  informs 
me  that  he  is  disposed  to  regard  Syrian  Antioch  as  the 
ultimate  source  of  the  type ;  and  the  example  of  Euty- 
chides's  statue  is  quite  favourable  to  his  view. 

We  observed  that  Tarsus  and  Iconium,  cities  of  the  plain, 
modified  the  Syrian  type  so  far  as  to  make  the  City  goddess 
sit  on  a  chair.  Barata  and  Lystra  follow  the  original  type 
in  making  her  sit  on  the  rocks.  Barata  was  a  city  of  the 
mountains,  Lystra  was  a  city  of  the  hilly  country.    The  City 


41 6  VI.   Lystra 

goddess  of  Lystra  wears  the  crescent  moon  upon  her  head, 
and  carries  corn -ears  in  her  hand :  this  shows  a  certain  modi- 
fication of  the  borrowed  type,  either  to  suit  the  local  re- 
h'gious  ideas,  or  possibly  (as  Mr.  G.  F.  Hill  suggests)  to 
identify  the  City  goddess  with  Isis. 

The  form  of  the  name  Lustra  on  some,  if  not  all,  of  the 
coins  and  the  Latin  inscriptions,  shows  the  attempt  to 
Romanise  a  Lycaonian  city.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  name  is  Lycaonian,  or  rather  East  Anatolian,  for  Kilistra 
and  Ilistra  in  Lycaonia,  Kybistra  and  Kizistra  in  southern 
Cappadocia,  prove  that  the  form  is  native  to  this  region 
along  the  north  side  of  Taurus,  and  that  the  nearest  approach 
to  a  correct  rendering  in  Latin  letters  would  be  Listra : 
doubtless  Ilistra  is  the  same  word  pronounced  with  a  slight 
vowel  sound  escaping  through  the  mouth  before  the  L. 
But  the  Greeks  called  it  Lystra  to  suggest  a  derivation  from 
the  Greek  verb  Xvecv,  and  the  Romans  named  it  Lustra  to 
give  it  an  apparent  connection  with  the  Latin  Lustrum  :  in 
each  case  false  popular  etymology  sought  to  find  a  fortunate 
meaning  for  the  name  in  its  own  language.^ 

The  colonial  constitution  was  doubtless  the  same  as  at 
Antioch  (p.  268  ff.) ;  but  few  details  are  preserved.  From 
fragmentary  inscriptions  we  learn  that  there  were  probably 
duumvirs  as  the  supreme  magistrates,  and  twelve  divisions 
of  the  burgesses :  the  name  of  these  divisions  is  given  in  a 
Greek  inscription  as  Tribes  ((f)vXai),  but  the  name  in  Latin 
is  not  attested.* 

The  evanescence  of  Roman  influence  and  language  and 
the  predominance  of  Hellenic  types  in  the  coinage  point  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  Roman  element  in  the  population  of 
the  Colonia  was  not  nearly  so  strong  in  Lystra  as  in  Antioch. 
Lystra  was  a  Lycaonian  town  with  a  small  admixture  of 


I.    Situation  and  Character  417 


privileged  Roman  Coloni.  Dr.  Olmstead  of  Cornell,  who  has 
been  making  a  study  of  the  pottery  found  on  these  sites, 
informs  me  that  only  a  few  fragments  of  Roman  pottery 
were  found  on  the  site :  the  rest  was  native,  of  Hellenistic 
period  or  earlier. 

The  colonial  character  of  Lystra  cannot  be  traced  in  Acts, 
as  it  can  be  clearly  seen  at  Antioch ;  but  the  comparative 
weakness  of  the  Roman  municipal  consciousness,  which  ap- 
pears in  all  the  rest  of  the  scanty  evidence,  fully  accounts 
for  this. 

Besides  the  Roman  colonists  the  population  of  Lystra 
consisted  of  the  class  which  was  educated  in  Greek  manners 
and  the  Greek  language,  and  the  uneducated  Lycaonian 
population. 

Not  a  trace  of  the  Roman  aristocracy  can  be  detected  in 
the  narrative  of  Acts.  They  apparently  stood  completely 
outside  of  the  influence  of  Paul  and  Barnabas,  as  we  saw  was 
the  case  with  the  Romans  of  An'Joch,  who  were  appealed 
to  by  the  Jews  as  the  ruling  oligarchy  of  the  Colonia  (see 
PP-  3I3>  370-  I"  Lystra  the  Roman  burgesses  make  no 
appearance  in  the  troubles  which  led  to  the  expulsion  of  the 
Apostles.  The  riot  was  engineered  through  the  mob,  as  at 
Iconium  (Part  IV.,  §  VIII.).  This  confirms  the  view  above 
stated  on  other  grounds  that  the  Roman  element  in  Lystra 
was  scanty  and  unimportant. 

The  Greek-educated  inhabitants  were  called  Hellenes" 
They  would  naturally  be  the  well-to-do  part  of  the  native- 
bom  population.  There  is  no  trace  of  any  Hellenistic  re- 
foundation in  Lystra,  and  Greeks  by  race  are  not  likely  to 
have  existed  there  in  any  numbers.  The  term  Hellenes 
expresses   an  educational,  not   a   racial   character.     These 

Hellenes   would   not   be  fully   qualified  citizens;   only  the 

27 


41 8  VI.  Lystra 

Roman  Coloni  were  burgesses  of  Lystra  at  this  period  (see 
p.  271);  all  the  rest  of  the  free  inhabitants  were  mere  resi- 
dents {incolae).  But  these  Hellenes  of  Lystra  may  be 
assumed  to  have  been  the  educated  class  of  the  city,  some 
wealthy,  others  at  least  belonging  to  successful  commercial 
families  or  to  any  local  native  aristocracy  which  may  have 
existed  in  Lycaonia.  Timothy,  whose  father  was  a  Hellene, 
therefore  belonged  to  the  well-to-do  or  the  wealthy  classes 
of  the  non-Roman  population.  Even  without  this  evidence 
the  fact  that  the  father  was  accepted  as  the  husband  of  a 
Jewess  may  be  safely  assumed  to  prove  that  he  was  a  person 
of  some  standing  in  Lystra.  This  is  only  an  example  of  the 
general  law  that  the  important  leaders  in  the  Church  of  Asia 
Minor  belonged  to  the  better  class  of  local  families  and  not 
to  the  humble  and  uneducated  classes :  on  this  see  Pauline 
and  Other  Studies,  p.  375  f. 

The  uneducated  Lycaonian  population  seems  to  have 
been  unusually  numerous  in  this  secluded  town,  and  has  been 
already  mentioned. 

§n.    Character  of  the  Five  Cities. 

The  history  of  each  of  these  cities  presents  a  study  of 
amalgamation,  more  or  less  thorough  and  more  or  less 
successful,  between  the  European  and  the  Asiatic  races. 
The  proportions  and  the  results  differ  in  every  case.  There 
is  an  infinite  variety  in  the  study  of  the  great  Graeco-Asiatic 
cities,  and  yet  the  elements  are  to  a  large  extent  the  same. 

Tarsus  is  far  the  most  Oriental,  So  it  has  been  through- 
out history,  and  so  it  is  still ;  as  you  travel  over  Central  and 
Eastern  Asia  Minor  far  and  wide,  you  are  aware  of  the 
Oriental  spirit  in  the  population  everywhere ;  but  it  is  only 
when  you  reach  Tarsus  that  you  feel  at  last  that  you  have 


II.   Character  of  the  Five  Cities  419 

entered  a  really  Oriental  city.  On  the  other  hand,  Pisidian 
Antioch  was  a  Hellenic  city,  or  rather  colony ;  yet  even 
there  the  Anatolian  tone  grows  stronger  and  becomes 
supreme  as  we  come  down  to  the  fourth  century. 

But  there  is  one  difficulty  in  this  study  which  must  always 
be  borne  in  mind  by  the  reader.  While  directing  attention 
for  the  moment  to  the  Oriental  or  the  Occidental  element  in 
any  of  the  cities,  one  has  to  leave  the  other  element  too 
much  out  of  sight ;  and  after  a  time,  when  one  turns  to  the 
other  side  of  the  picture,  there  may  appear  to  be  some 
inconsistency.  In  one  section  the  city  might  seem  to  be 
described  as  mainly  Anatolian,  in  another  as  Hellenic,  in 
another  as  Semitic,  as  the  evidence  bearing  on  each  topic 
is  treated  separately.  The  reader  must  compensate  one 
section  by  another. 

Moreover,  time  makes  a  difference.  The  Western  spirit, 
active  and  busy,  seems  at  its  first  entrance  to  carry  every- 
thing before  it.  The  city  becomes  in  outward  show  entirely 
Hellenic  and  Roman  during  the  first  century  after  Christ. 
But  the  Oriental  nature  lies  deep  and  strong  under  the 
surface.  It  revives  during  the  second  and  third  centuries, 
and  becomes  predominant  in  the  fourth.  The  unchanging 
East  swallows  up  the  West,  unless  the  latter  is  constantly 
reinforced  either  by  fresh  immigration,  or  by  the  maintenance 
of  a  high  education.  A  true  system  of  education  raises  both 
Asiatic  and  European  to  a  higher  level,  on  which  they  can 
mix  and  meet,  each  preserving  his  own  individuality,  yet 
respecting  and  appreciating  that  of  the  other;  and  this  is 
the  platform  on  which  Christianity,  alone  among  the  religions 
of  the  world,  claimed  in  the  beginning  to  move  and  to  work, 
though  too  often  it  has  allowed  its  ideals  and  its  aspirations 
to  sink  to  a  lower  level. 


PART  VII. 

ST.  PAUL  IN  THE  ROMAN  WORLD. 


ST.  PAUL  IN  THE  ROMAN  WORLD. 

In  a  subject  like  this,  so  wide,  so  important  and  so  much 
discussed,  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  an  apparently  too  dog- 
matic statement  of  opinions  which  would  nf^t  be  generally 
accepted  at  the  present  time.  The  appearance  of  dogma- 
tism is  due  to  the  desire  of  brevity :  it  is  easy  for  the 
reader  to  find  other  views  stated  by  more  distinguished 
scholars.  It  is  not  my  aim  to  give  a  history  of  opinion,  or 
to  balance  and  weigh  the  views  of  the  learned.  Any  small 
value  which  this  book  may  have  is  due  to  its  expressing  a 
judgment  formed  fresh  from  the  original  documents  and  the 
actual  localities,  not  from  a  study  of  the  modern  authorities, 
many  of  whom  I  find  so  antipathetic  that  they  have  little 
for  me.  Yet  many  opinions,  to  which  no  allusion  is  here 
made,  have  been  pondered  over  long,  before  they  were  re- 
jected. Some  I  held  at  one  time  as  a  convinced  disciple  of 
their  leading  champions;  and  I  have  grown  out  of  them 
through  the  force  of  unconscious  life  under  the  impulse  of 
experience,  rather  than  reasoned  myself  out  of  them  through 
conscious  argument. 

But  it  is  the  penalty  of  stating  a  new  view  of  history  that 
one  must  inevitably  fail  to  carry  conviction  at  first,  however 
confident  one  is  that  the  world  will  one  day  be  convinced. 
To  support  a  new  reading  of  history,  there  are  needed  many 
subsidiary  studies  which  can  be  made  only  by  a  co-ordinated 

(423) 


424       VII.   Si.  Paul  in  the  Roman   World 

group  of  scholars,  a  school  of  students  working  in  unison,  cor^ 
recting  and  completing  one  another,  but  looking  at  all  the 
questions  of  history  from  the  same  point  of  view,  and  thus 
building  up  by  organised  co-operation  a  harmonious  study. 
A  body  of  reasoned  investigation  must  form  the  basis  of  any 
new  view  of  history ;  and  that  cannot  be  wrought  out  by 
a  single  person  within  the  limits  of  human  life.  The  true 
historian  cannot  now  exist  except  by  founding  a  school  to 
co-operate  with  him.  One  may  see,  or  think  one  sees;  but 
one  cannot  by  mere  brief  statement  of  opinions  make  others 
see  who  have  been  habituated  to  a  different  point  of  view. 
The  solitary  historian  at  the  present  day  is  doomed  to 
failure.  Yet  I  can  at  least  emphasise  and  reiterate  that  the 
history  of  the  Roman  Empire  has  to  be  re-written  from  the 
point  of  view  which  I  have  tried,  however  inadequately, 
to  set  before  you  in  outline  in  the  first  part  of  this  work 
and  to  exemplify  in  some  individual  cases  in  the  following 
parts. 

Before  passing  from  this  subject  it  seems  best  to  give  one 
example,  bearing  on  the  conduct  and  the  writings  of  St. 
Paul,  and  showing  how  easy  it  is  to  miss  the  right  point 
of  view  in  studying  the  position  of  the  Church  in  the 
Empire,  and  how  much  the  judgment  of  the  most  learned 
historians  and  the  most  respected  scholars  may  thus  be 
distorted. 

The  contrast   between    the   Apocalyptic   view   and   the 
^  principles  which  rule  in  the  letters  of  Paul  is  certainly  great. 

Yet  sometimes  one  finds  that  this  contrast  is  exaggerated  in 
modern  opinion  and  made  to  appear  as  if  it  were  a  contra- 
diction. I  have  seen  the  statement  printed  by  a  good 
scholar  that,  if  Paul  had  lived  to  read  the  Apocalypse  it 
would  have  broken  his  heart.     Such  a  statement  seems  to 


VII.   5/.   Paul  in  the  Roman   World       425 

originate  from  a  one-sided  view  of  the  position  of  the 
Apostle  in  the  Roman  world,  and  a  failure  to  estimate  com- 
pletely the  various  forces  which  were  acting  on  him,  and 
among  which  he  had  to  steer  a  steady  course. 

A  study  of  the  situation  in  its  entirety  must,  I  think,  lead 
to  the  conclusion  that  Paul  would  have  been  in  perfect  sym- 
pathy with  the  Apocalypse  of  John,  if  he  had  lived  to  the 
epoch  when  it  was  written,  and  would  even  have  written  his 
own  Apocalypse.  Nay,  I  would  even  go  so  far  as  to  main- 
tain that  there  was  an  Apocalyptic  period  in  the  teaching  of 
Paul,  before  he  had  fully  understood  the  position  which  the 
Church  occupied  in  the  Roman  world,  and  that  he  has  given 
us  an  outline  of  his  Apocalypse ;  but  it  is  so  original  and  so 
unlike  the  traditional  Jewish  Apocalyptic  style  that  its 
significance  is  not  properly  recognised.  John  was  so  im- 
bued with  the  spirit  and  affected  by  the  form  of  the  earlier 
Jewish  Apocalypses,  that  very  wild  theories  have  been  ad- 
vanced as  to  the  nature  of  his  book  ;  but  John  was 
brought  up  in  Palestine.     Paul  stood  beyond  the  influence  '  S^ 

of  this  class  of  literature,  thanks  to  his  Hellenic  education. 
He  shared  in  the  views  of  John,  but  he  expressed  them 
differently. 

The  attitude  which  the  first  Christians  ought  to  take  to 
the  Roman  Imperial  Government  was  not  one  that  could 
be  easily  determined  or  clearly  defined  in  a  body  of  rules. 
The  judgment  of  individuals  must  have  differed  consider- 
ably :  the  judgment  of  the  same  individual  would  almost 
inevitably  vary  from  time  to  time  according  to  changes  in 
the  prevailing  tone  of  administration  and  alteration  in  the 
personal  point  of  view.  The  attitude  of  Paul  himself  altered 
materially  during  the  period  of  his  life  that  is  best  known  to  -^ 
us.     On  the  one  hand  the  Imperial  system  was  based  on  the 


426       VII.   S^.  Paul  in  the  Roman  World 

most  glaring  and  flagrant  form  of  idolatry,  the  worship  of  a 
living  man  as  the  incarnate  god  on  earth ;  it  was  the  direct 
enemy  of  Christ:  its  system  was  like  a  parody  of  the 
Christian  Gospel.  How  could  Paul  do  anything  but  hate  it 
and  condemn  it  ?  On  the  other  hand  it  saved  the  world 
from  worse  evils :  every  one  who  lived  in  those  times  knew 
that  the  Emperor  and  the  Imperial  Government  alone  stood 
between  the  civilised  world  and  destruction,  and  restrained 
the  power  of  disorder,  war  and  savagery,  which  had  recently 
nearly  overwhelmed  society  and  put  an  end  to  civilisation. 
Something,  nay  much,  was  due  to  the  Emperor,  and  the 
Lord's  command  was  clear  and  definite,  "  Render  to  Caesar 
the  things  that  are  Caesar's  ".  It  was  a  delicate  position  for 
the  adviser  who  had  to  counsel  new  converts  not  very  well 
educated  in  moral  judgment,  as  to  how  they  ought  to  regard 
the  Imperial  system  ;  and  one  can  well  understand  that  Paul's 
earliest  words  to  a  young  Church  should  require  subsequent 
interpretation  and  explanation. 

Moreover,  Paul  at  Thessalonica  had  found  the  Roman 
administration  the  enemy  of  the  Gospel.  He  was  accused 
of  treason  to  the  Emperor  and  of  setting  up  a  rival  Emperor, 
and  was  practically  condemned  in  absence  by  the  magistrates. 
Their  action,  covered  by  the  name  of  loyalty  to  Csesar,  made 
it  impossible  for  him  to  return  soon  to  Thessalonica,  eager  as 
he  was  to  do  so.  This  hindrance  he  speaks  of  as  "  Satan  "  ; 
and  his  language  approximates  to  calling  the  Imperial  system 
by  that  name  {St.  Paul  the  Traveller,  p.  230  f.). 

The  treatment  which  he  had  experienced  in  the  Roman 
Coloniae,  Philippi,  Lystra  and  Pisidian  Antioch,  in  all  of  which 
he  suffered  severely  and  was  probably  beaten  with  the  staves 
of  the  lictors  who  attended  on  Roman  magistrates,  was  cal- 
culated to  confirm  the  unfavourable  opinion  which  at  one 


VII.   Si.  Paul  in  the  Roman   World       427 

time  he  seems  to  have  entertained  of  the  Imperial  Govern- 
ment as  the  enemy  of  the  faith.  The  Coloniae  were  outlying 
parts  of  Rome,  peopled  by  Romans  (for  the  non-Roman 
inhabitants  were  merely  residents,  not  citizens)  and  governed 
by  Romans ;  and  for  years  these  represented  to  him  the 
feeling  of  the  Roman  State  towards  the  Gospel  and  its 
adherents.  That  he  endured  violence  at  Pisidian  Antioch 
as  well  as  at  Lystra,  and  that  the  vague  words  of  Acts 
xiii.  50  conceal  severe  bodily  suffering,  seems  clear  from 
the  language  of  the  Apostle  himself,  2  Timothy  iii.  11: 
"persecutions,  sufferings  :  what  things  befell  meat  Antioch, 
at  Iconium,  at  Lystra;  what  persecutions  I  endured".  It 
was  only  in  Coloniae  that  he  could  be  beaten  with  the  lictor's 
staves ;  and  as  he  had  so  suffered  thrice,  and  he  had  been 
only  in  three  Coloniae,  we  must  infer  that  his  expulsion  from 
Antioch  and  Lystra  had  been  preceded  by  chastisement 
administered  by  the  lictors  (which  in  itself  may  be  assumed 
as  customary  when  disorderly  persons  were  ejected  from  a 
Roman  town).  Hence,  at  Philippi,  Paul  and  Silas  did  not 
at  first  claim  the  rights  of  Roman  citizens.  Paul  had  not  as 
yet  begun  to  feel  that  Rome  and  Roman  law  might  be  a  pro- 
tection against  barbarism  and  cruelty. 

In  Corinth  we  find  that  Paul's  attitude  towards  the 
Imperial  Government  had  altered.  The  decision  of  Gallio 
(which  owing  to  the  force  of  precedent  in  Roman  administra- 
tion was  practically  a  charter  of  freedom  for  Christians  to 
preach  and  teach,  valid  until  reversed  by  some  higher  tribunal) 
had  something  to  do  with  the  change  in  his  attitude  towards 
the  Government ;  but,  probably,  a  more  important  cause  lay 
in  the  development  and  the  widening  of  his  own  views,  as 
he  better  understood  the  problem  of  the  Roman  world.  He 
realised  that  the  Empire  was  for  the  present  the  vehicle 


428        VII.   5/.  Paul  in  the  Roman   World 

destined  to  carry  the  Christian  Church,  and  that  the  Imperial 
Government  was  in  a  sense  necessary  to  the  Church.  Further, 
he  had  learned  that  the  Empire  was  tolerant  of  the  Church ; 
and  there  seems  to  have  arisen  in  his  mind  the  idea  that 
Christianity  might  ultimately  make  itself  the  religion  of  the 
Empire.  But  that  ultimate  aim  could  not  possibly  blind 
him  to  the  inevitable  fact  that  there  must  be  war  against 
the  great  and  crowning  idolatry  of  the  Imperial  cult,  which 
was  the  keystone  of  the  Imperial  arch,  the  basis  of  the 
Imperial  unity. 

Such  was  the  dilemma  with  which  Paul  was  confronted ; 
and  his  letters  to  the  Thessalonians  are  to  me  intelligible 
only  on  the  view  that  he  was  fully  conscious  of  the  dilemma. 
The  Empire  was  the  servant,  the  bearer,  the  instrument  of 
the  Church,  and  yet  it  was  also  its  irreconcilable  and  inevit- 
able foe.  There  could  never  be  permanent  peace  between 
the  Church  and  the  Emperor,  "  who  sitteth  in  the  sanctuary 
of  God,  setting  himsdf  forth  as  God  ".  But  that  war  had 
not  yet  actually  begun  :  much  had  to  occur  before  it  should 
begin.  As  yet  the  Emperor  did  not  stand  before  them  re- 
vealed in  his  real  character.  He  was  still  the  restrainer  of  a 
worse  evil,  the  instrument  of  God.  Ultimately  he  should  be 
revealed  as  he  really  was,  the  man  of  sin,  the  son  of  perdition, 
the  enemy  of  God  ;  and  then  should  come  the  great  and  final 
war.  In  that  future  time  the  Emperor,  who  now  restrains 
the  forces  of  disorder  and  barbarism,  shall  be  disclosed  as 
himself  the  great  power  and  leader  of  barbarism  and  the 
enemy  of  all  that  is  good.  Every  enemy  of  the  truth  shall 
then  be  allied  against  the  Church,  in  the  great  battle  which 
the  seer  of  the  Apocalypse  foresaw  at  Har-Megiddo.  But 
that  is  not  yet.  Such  was  the  way  in  which  the  relation  be- 
tween the  Empire   and   the  Church   developed  during  the 


VII.   S^.  Paul  in  the  Ro77ian   World       429 

following  centuries,  and  so  Paul  foresaw  with  the  eye  of  a 
statesman  and  a  prophet. 

This  is  the  cryptic  message  of  explanation  to  the  Thessa- 
lonians,  2  chap,  ii.  That  message  had  to  be  expressed  in 
very  cautious  and  enigmatic  language,  significant  only  to  the 
initiated.  It  was  a  dangerous  truth,  which  might  bring  death 
to  the  young  Church  in  Thessalonica  ;  the  letter  might  fall 
into  the  wrong  hands,  and  such  a  truth  must  not  be  so 
plainly  written  that  every  person  could  understand  it. 

Is  it  too  great  a  stretch  of  imagination  to  attribute  to  Paul 
such  insight  into  the  future  course  of  history,  and  to  recognise 
in  the  mystic  words  of  that  letter  an  anticipation  of  the 
Apocalypse  of  John  ?  Surely  not.  We  have  seen  in  p.  yi  {. 
that  the  Imperial  policy  as  defined  by  the  ablest  among  the 
Emperors  anticipated  the  inevitable  approach  of  that  con- 
flict with  the  Church,  and  recognised  the  Church  while  still 
young  and  weak  as  the  great  enemy  of  the  Imperial  system  in 
the  future.  Paul  was  much  more  likely  to  see  the  character 
of  the  Empire  than  the  Emperors  to  comprehend  the  nature 
of  the  Church.  It  is  in  truth  as  inconceivable  that  Paul 
could  be  insensible  of  the  nature  of  the  Imperial  system,  as 
it  is  that  he  could  consent  to  any  compromise  with  the 
Imperial  worship.  A  purified  Empire  was  the  Pauline  idea ; 
but  a  purified  Empire  meant  the  elimination  of  the  God- 
Emperor. 

One  must  therefore  guard  against  the  tendency  to  ex- 
aggerate the  contrast  between  the  spirit  of  recognition  of 
and  allowance  for  the  Empire,  shown  in  Luke,  most  of  the 
Pauline  letters,  and  i  Peter,  and  the  spirit  of  defiance  and 
detestation  that  animates  the  Apocalypse  of  John.  The  con- 
trast is  a  very  real  one ;  but  it  indicates  no  deep  difference 
of  opinion  between  the  various  writers.     The  difference  of 


430       VII.   SL  Paul  in  the  Roman  World 

tone  is  due  to  change  of  circumstances.  Paul's  hatred  of  the 
enthroned  He,  the  Imperial  false  god,  was  as  deep  and  strong 
as  John's;  and  he  knew  equally  well  that  in  the  end  the 
Church  must  destroy  the  Imperial  tyranny,  or  be  killed  by 
it.  But  he  was  content  to  wait  till  the  future  developed.  In 
the  meantime  the  power  that  maintained  peace  and  order  in 
the  world  was,  in  a  sense,  the  friend  and  protector  of  the 
infant  Church. 

Now  as  I  have  begun  to  speak  of  the  Apocalyptic  side  of 
early  Christian  thought,  I  should  conclude  this  study  by  an 
analysis  of  a  passage  in  the  Apocalypse  of  John,  which 
rightly  understood  shows  how  closely  one  of  his  most 
Hebraic  visions  approximates  to  the  Pauline  point  of  view, 
though  superficially  it  seems  as  far  from  it  as  East  is  from 
West.  In  a  vision  of  the  Apocalypse  (Rev.  vi.  2  ff.)  John 
saw  Conquest  riding  forth  with  War,  Ravage  or  Scarcity 
(which  is  its  result  and  not  distinguished  in  Hebrew  thought 
from  it),  and  Massacre  in  his  train.  Conquest  is  imagined 
after  the  fashion  of  the  Parthian  King,  a  bowman,  mounted 
on  a  white  horse.  The  person  of  the  others  is  not  described, 
but  only  their  work.  War  is  thought  of  as  a  combination 
of  discord  and  slaughter,  carrying  a  great  sword  and  mounted 
on  a  red  horse.  Ravage  or  Scarcity,  the  name  is  indifferent, 
sits  on  a  black  horse  and  holds  a  balance.  Massacre,  whose 
name  is  Death,  and  who  is  followed  by  Hades,  rides  on  a 
pale  horse. 

The  imagery  is  bold  and  simple.  Conquest  rides  forth 
as  the  great  king,  clad  in  glory  and  holding  the  might  of  the 
bow.  But  horror  and  terror  attend  on  the  glory  of  the 
conquering  sovereign :  Battle  with  its  bloodshed.  Ravage 
that  produces  famine,  and  Massacre  go  with  him.     Yet  there 


VII.   Sf.  Paul  in  the  Roman   World       431 

is  a  measure  to  their  power.  In  war  there  is  a  stricken 
field  and  a  fight  between  combatants.  In  the  most  bloody 
of  battles  many  even  of  the  defeated  army  escape.  The 
limit  here  lies  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  and  there  is  no 
need  to  specify  or  describe  it.  Far  more  terrible  are  the 
other  two  figures ;  but  to  them  a  definite  limit  is  fixed. 
Massacre  has  authority  over  the  fourth  part  of  the  earth : 
three-fourths  of  the  conquered  country  is  spared.  Ravage 
carries  his  own  measure  with  him,  for  he  holds  in  his  hands 
a  balance ;  and  a  voice  proclaimed,  "  A  measure  of  wheat  at 
the  price  of  a  denarius,  and  three  measures  of  barley  at  a 
denarius  ;  but  harm  not  the  wine  and  the  oil  ".  The  crops 
are  to  be  destroyed  to  the  limit  of  extreme  scarcity,  until 
wheat  is  sold  at  seven  times  and  barley  at  four  times  the 
ordinary  price ;  but  the  vine  and  the  olive  trees  are  to  be 
left  uninjured. 

In  interpreting  a  series  of  allegorical  figures  like  this,  the 
general  purpose  rules  the  whole.  That  Conquest  brings  with 
it  the  three  companion  terrors  was  the  law  of  life  and  of  war 
in  the  Mediterranean  world,  as  it  must  always  be  ;  but  a  limit 
to  their  action  existed  in  every  case.  The  limit  set  to  the 
Ravaging  of  the  land  calls  for  some  explanation. 

The  Ravaging  is  confined  to  the  annual  crops  ;  but  the 
country  is  spared  the  almost  irretrievable  ruin  which  would 
have  resulted  in  the  Mediterranean  lands  from  destruction 
of  the  vine  and  the  olive.  In  the  northern  lands,  where 
fruit-trees  are  of  small  account,  we  do  not  easily  .sympathise 
with  or  comprehend  an  image  like  this.  Destruction  of  the 
trees  means  little  to  us,  until  we  have  understood  the  economy 
of  the  Mediterranean  world.  But  there  to  cut  down  the 
olive  tree  or  to  burn  the  vineyards  is  the  last  extreme  of 
savagery,  which  only  the  rudest  and  worst   of  barbarians 


432       VII.   S^.  Paul  in  the  Roman   World. 

would  perpetrate  in  the  land  which  they  had  conquered. 
The  loss  of  the  harvest  of  wheat  and  barley  means  scarcity 
and  high  prices  ;  but  a  new  year  brings  new  crops.  The 
loss  of  olives  and  vines  means  lasting  ruin,  for  new  olive 
trees  take  about  seventeen  years  to  grow,  new  vines  also 
need  a  good  many  years,  and  in  times  of  uncertainty  and 
danger  no  one  dares  to  spend  labour  for  a  result  so  remote. 
In  the  long  series  of  curses  pronounced  in  Deuteronomy 
xxviii.  against  degenerate  Israel,  the  ravaging  of  the  land 
by  savages  from  the  remotest  parts  of  the  earth,  who  shall 
not  leave  corn,  wine  or  oil,  is  described  in  terrible  detail. 
Only  one  horror  remains  to  put  the  climax  on  the  destruction 
wrought  by  those  ignorant  savages,  viz.^  cannibalism,  of 
which  a  hideous  picture  is  drawn.  The  noble  savages  of 
the  Crusading  armies,  knights  and  lords  and  bishops,  cut 
down  the  olive  trees  of  the  Holy  Land,  and  involved  it  in 
lasting  ruin. 

In  the  picture  of  the  Apocalypse  this  horror  and  utter 
destruction  is  forbidden  :  a  measure  is  observed :  there  is 
extreme  cruelty,  much  bloodshed,  but  not  the  utter  savagery 
of  wanton  destruction  of  all  property,  all  means  of  livelihood, 
and  the  entire  foundations  on  which  civilised  life  rests. 
The  bearing  of  this  on  the  design  of  the  Apocalypse  it  is 
not  our  present  purpose  to  discuss  ;  surely  it  is  plain.  But 
it  falls  within  the  scope  of  these  lectures  to  indicate  the  place 
in  history  which  this  idea  occupies,  and  its  bearing  on  the 
topic  of  degeneration,  which  in  the  present  condition  of 
historical  investigation  is  forced  on  the  attention  of  every 
student  of  the  Pauline  philosophy ;  for,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
very  first  question  which  the  Pauline  student  must  answer 
is  whether  degeneration  or  progress  is  the  ordinary  law  of 
human   history.     Paul  says  degeneration  is  the  usual  and 


VII.   SL  Paul  in  the  Roman   World       433 

normal  tendency  of  man  :  the  sciences  of  comparative  re- 
ligion, comparative  mythology  and  folklore  and  anthropology 
generally,  as  they  are  now  conducted,  assume  at  the  outset 
and  throughout  that  progress  is  the  ordinary  and  natural 
law  of  human  history,  and  that  the  phenomena  observable  in 
the  world  past  and  present  ought  to  be  classified  on  the 
principle  that  the  rude,  the  barbarous,  the  ugly  and  the 
brutal  is  early  and  primitive. 

This  part  of  the  vision  in  the  Apocalypse  expresses,  not 
an  individual  opinion  or  an  isolated  phenomenon,  but  the 
conception  of  the  law  of  war,  which  lay  deep  in  the  nature 
of  the  Mediterranean  peoples  as  far  back  as  we  can  see. 
It  is  bloody  and  cruel,  it  has  little  care  for  human  life  and 
it  takes  no  thought  for  the  wounded,  but  it  is  not  savage, 
for  it  recognises  limits  and  it  conserves  the  permanent  pros- 
perity of  the  land.  It  was  not  a  written  law,  produced  by 
diplomatists  and  conventions ;  it  was  the  unwritten  law  of 
God,  binding  men  by  the  sanctions  and  the  terrors  of  re- 
ligious awe,  stamped  deep  into  the  nature  of  men  through 
many  generations,  until  it  had  remade  the  form  of  their 
minds  and  become  the  unconscious  law  of  their  action. 
Contrast,  for  example,  the  conquest  of  Palestine  by  Joshua 
with  that  by  the  chivalry  and  the  religion,  an  external  and 
unfelt  religion,  of  Europe  in  the  early  Crusades,  as  regards 
the  permanent  well-being  of  the  country  and  the  world. 
The  Israelite  conquerors,  a  race  partly  nomads  of  the 
Arabian  desert,  partly  serfs  from  Egypt,  overran  a  land 
peopled  by  nations,  much  more  civilised  on  the  whole  than 
themselves :  it  was  a  cruel  and  bloody  conquest,  in  which 
the  more  civilised  inhabitants  were  slain,  or  reduced  to  serf- 
dom ;  but  the  land  and  its  powers  of  production  remained 
practically    uninjured.      The    Crusades    reduced    Palestine 

28 


V 


434       VII-   '^^-  ^^^^  i^  ^he  Roman  World 

almost  entirely  to  the  condition  of  waste  laud  and  so 
destroyed  its  recuperative  power  that  it  continues  to  the 
present  day  in  very  large  part  waste,  only  a  few  scat- 
tered districts  being  well  cultivated  near  the  few  centres 
of  population. 

A  later  period  understood  the  conquest  by  Joshua  differ- 
ently ;  the  later  taste  demanded  that  the  purpose  and  result 
of  the  Hebrew  conquest  should  be  a  universal  massacre,  and 
called  for  the  isolation  of  the  people  of  God  in  a  land  where 
all  older  population  had  been  destroyed,  and  it  partly  ex- 
plained by  the  trick  of  the  Gibeonites  the  obvious  fact  that 
the  previous  population  was  not  annihilated,  partly  shut 
its  eyes  to  the  actual  condition  of  Palestine,  where  a  con- 
siderable remnant  of  the  older  races  did  actually  remain. 

Here  you  find,  as  in  every  case,  that,  when  you  get  back 
to  the  early  stage  of  Mediterranean  history  you  do  not  reach 
a  condition  of  savagery :  you  get  back  to  a  religious  law,  to 
a  state  where  order,  international  ordinances  and  social  or- 
ganisation were  recognised. 

This  vision  is  no  prophecy  for  future  ages  to  unfold  :  it  is 
a  declaration  of  the  truth  and  the  law  of  the  world  in  the 
emblematic  fashion  that  Oriental  thought  always  loves :  it 
is  a  statement  in  the  Hebraic  style  of  certain  deep-lying 
principles,  which  governed  the  evolution  of  Mediterranean 
history.  Paul  with  his  Hellenic  training  would  have  ex- 
pressed those  principles  in  more  scientific  form ;  and  it  is  to 
me  unintelligible  how  so  many  distinguished  scholars  in 
modern  times  can  read  his  letters  and  continue  to  main- 
tain that  he  was  a  narrow  Jew,  ignorant  of  Hellenic  thought 
and  training.  But  perhaps  they  read  Paul  little  :  one  some- 
times suspects  that  they  are  so  busy  reading  the  vast  array 
of  modern  treatises  about  him  that  they  have  no  time  to 


VII.   5/.  Paul  in  the  Roman   World       435 


read  his  own  words.  The  volume  of  modern  comment  on 
Paul  is  so  enormous  as  almost  to  bury  the  original,  and  we 
are  in  danger  of  neglecting  the  text  while  we  study  the  com- 
mentary :  which  is  a  good  reason  for  bringing  this  book  to 
an  end,  .'  ^ 


NOTES. 

ST.  PAUL. 

*  E.  Curtius,  Gesammelte  Abhandlungen,  ii.,  p,  531  ff. ;  E,  L.  Hicks,  Studia 
Biblica,  iv.,  p.  i  ff.,  and  Classical  Review,  i.,  pp.  4  ff.,  42  ff. 

*  Pauline  and  Other  Studies,  p.  72  f. 

'Since  the  words  were  uttered,  we  have  to  mourn  his  too  early  death. 

*  Fischer,  der  Oelbaum,  seine  geographische  Verbreitung,  seine  wirtschaft- 
liche  und  kulturhistorische  Bedeutung,  Gotha,  Perthes,  1904,  p.  2.  A  fuller 
discussion  of  the  subject  is  given  in  Pauline  and  Other  Studies,  p.  219  ff. 

^  In  an  account  of  the  Religion  of  Greece  and  Asia  Minor,  in  Hastings' 
Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  v.,  pp.  109-56. 

*  The  subject  of  the  destruction  of  agriculture  in  Asia  Minor  and  its 
possible  restoration  was  discussed  in  the  Contemporary  Review,  Dec,  igo6, 
pp.  786-800. 

^  I  use  the  term  history,  not  in  the  narrow  sense  of  history  that  rests  on 
the  written  ancient  sources,  but  in  the  wider  sense  of  all  attainable  know- 
ledge of  the  past,  whether  dependent  on  literary  or  on  archaeological  evi- 
dence. 

*  The  quotation  is  from  the  article  already  mentioned  in  Hastings'  Dic- 
tionary, v.,  p.  133. 

'The  subject  is  discussed  more  fully  in  the  Expositor,  Feb.,  1900,  p.  91  ff. 

^"The  thought  must  have  been  simmering  in  the  mind  of  Virgil,  but  the 
form  was  suggested  as  a  reply  to  a  poem  of  Horace.  My  own  personal  view 
is  that  the  two  poems  inaugurated  the  personal  relations  and  intimate 
friendship  of  the  two  poets. 

1*  From  the  translation  of  Sir  Theodore  Martin. 

^^The  Book  of  Epodes  was  not  published  collectively  till  30  B.C.  ;  but  it 
is  a  well-established  fact  that  important  single  poems  like  this  were  known 
earlier. 

^*  Two  others,  the  Sixth  and  the  Tenth,  were  also  supposed  by  Schaper  to 
have  been  composed  for  the  enlarged  second  edition. 

1*  Professor  J.  B.  Mayor  collects  the  resemblances  to  Isaiah  in  the  Expositor, 
April,  1907,  p.  289  ff.,  and  suggests  an  origin  in  the  Sibylline  Books,  not  in 
knowledge  of  Isaiah's  writings.  I  have  discussed  this  in  Expositor,  June,  1907. 
The  present  section  is  based  on  a  paper  read  to  the  first  interrutional  meeting 

(437) 


438 


Notes 


of  the  Franco-Scottish  Society,  1894,  and  buried  in  its  Transactions.  Monsieur 
S.  Reinach  discusses  I'Orpkisme  dans  la  IV^  i^glogue  de  Virgile  in  his 
Cultes,  Mythes  et  Religions,  ii.,  pp.  66-84 ;  there  is  much  worth  study  in  his 
paper,  and  an  element  of  truth  in  his  view,  but  it  is  pushed  to  extremes  and  is 
confined  to  one  side  of  the  case. 

TARSUS. 

'  Preface  to  The  Letters  to  the  Seven  Churches,  with  chapters  xi.,  xii. 

^  It  will  be  convenient  here,  once  for  all,  to  mention  various  articles  in 
which  the  writer  has  studied  Tarsus  from  other  points  of  view.  In  an  article, 
"  Cilicia,  Tarsus,  and  the  great  Taurus  Pass,"  Geographical  yournal,  October, 
1903,  pp.  357-413,  there  is  given  a  study  in  considerable  detail  of  the  geo- 
graphical and  commercial  conditions  which  helped  to  determine  the  history  of 
the  three  cities  of  the  lower  Cilician  plain.  Two  papers  in  the  Athenmum,  6th 
December,  1902,  and  ist  August,  1903,  contain  a  description  of  the  situation 
and  surroundings  of  Tarsus,  and  of  the  topography  of  the  district.  A  paper 
in  which  the  attempt  was  made  to  estimate  the  importance  of  the  relations 
between  sea  valley  and  central  plateau,  and  to  classify  "  the  geographical 
conditions  determining  history  and  religion  in  Asia  Minor,"  Geographical 
Journal,  September,  1902,  pp.  257-282,  bears  on  the  history  of  Tarsus  among 
other  places.  The  article  "Tarsus  "in  Dr.  Hastings'  great  Dictionary  of 
the  Bible,  gives  a  summary  of  the  history  of  Tarsus.  I  have  also  written  a 
detailed  study  of  Mallos,  the  great  rival  of  Tarsus,  but  refrained  from  printing 
it  until  the  opportunity  of  visiting  Mallos  may  present  itself,  so  that  the 
topographical  view  expressed  in  it  (which  is  quite  opposed  to  the  opinions, 
differing  from  one  another,  recently  advocated  by  M.  Imhoof  Blumer  and  by 
Messrs.  Heberdey  and  Wilhelm)  may  be  tested  by  actual  experiment ;  but 
in  the  present  study  the  truth  of  the  view  advocated  in  this  unpublished  paper 
must  be  assumed.  We  visited  Tarsus,  my  wife  and  I,  in  1902  and  in  1891. 
In  August,  1890,  also  I  passed  through  it,  without  stopping,  when  hurrying 
to  catch  a  steamer  at  Mersina,  the  modern  port  of  Tarsus. 

2a  That  the  bounds  about  a.d.  200  were  at  the  Cilician  Gates,  as  here  stated, 
and  not  farther  south,  seems  proved  not  only  by  the  nature  of  the  case  but  also 
by  the  inscription  "Opoi  KixIkoiv  engraved  on  the  rocks  there.  But  Strabo  (p. 
673)  says  that  the  boundaries  of  the  Cilicians  were  only  120  stadia  (15  miles) 
from  Tarsus ;  and  this  brings  us  about  the  northern  edge  of  the  high  ground  on 
which  stand  the  late  city  and  the  triumphal  arch,  where  we  consider  that  certain 
Tarsian  games  were  held  (see  p.  94  f.) :  now  those  games  are  stated  on  coins 
to  have  been  held  iv  KoSpiyois  '6pois  KiKIkwp,  "at  the  triumphal  arch,  the 
boundary  of  the  Cilicians,"  and  this  agreement  between  Strabo  and  the  coins 
furnishes  irresistible  evidence  for  his  time.  Yet  the  defensive  point  for  Cilicia 
was  at  the  Gates  ;  and  in  earlier  times,  as  when  Alexander  the  Great  invaded 
the  country,  the  only  attempt  at  guarding  the  country  had  its  station  there. 


Notes  439 


*  I  take  it  to  be  mansio  in  monte,  mentioned  in  the  Pcutinger  Table. 

*  The  only  alternative  to  this  hypothesis  is  to  alter  the  text, 

"  The  Cydnus  rises  on  the  southern  face  of  Taurus :  the  other  two  arc 
rivers  of  the  central  plateau,  which  force  their  way  through  the  Taurus  in 
deep  gorges  offering  wonderfully  picturesque  scenery,  and  thus  reach  the  sea. 

*The  Pyramus  formerly  joined  the  sea  farther  to  the  west,  as  is  de- 
scribed in  a  subsequent  paragraph. 

'  So  Dion  Chrysostom  says,  Or.  33,  p.  13,  §  39. 

'  Kara-Tash,  Black-Stone,  is  the  name  both  of  the  hills  and  of  a  village 
situated  on  them. 

•So  also  Alcmaeon,  when  struck  with  madness  after  he  had  slain  his 
mother,  could  find  no  rest  or  peace  or  home,  until  he  went  to  a  place  which 
was  neither  sea  nor  land.  Such  a  place  he  found  in  the  swampy  delta  of 
the  Acheloos.  Bellerophon,  afflicted  also  with  madness  by  the  Divine  wrath, 
found  his  lonely  refuge  in  the  marsh  land  of  the  lower  Sarus.  I  am  indebted 
to  Miss  J.  E.  Harrison,  LL.D.,  for  the  illustration. 

*a  See  Dion,  Or.  33,  §  24 ;  Professor  T.  Callander  on  the  two  Tarsian  Orations 
in  the  Journal  of  Hellenic  Studies,  1904,  p.  62. 

1"  It  is  an  error  of  Ritter's  to  call  the  harbour  town  Anchialos.  The  sole 
foundation  for  the  great  geographer's  opinion  seems  to  lie  in  the  derivation 
fi-yX'  «^^s>  "  near  the  sea ".  The  references  of  the  ancients  show  clearly 
that  Anchialos  was  about  twelve  miles  south-west  of  Tarsus  on  the  road  to 
Soloi-Pompeiopolis,  and  a  little  way  inland  from  Zephyrion,  which  was 
situated  at  Kara-Duwar,  on  the  coast  about  two  miles  east  from  Mersina,  the 
modern  harbour  which  has  taken  the  place  of  Zephyrion. 

•^  I  may  reier  here  to  the  fuller  discussion  of  this  scene  in  my  Pauline  and 
Other  Studies,  pp.  59-62. 

"  Another  proposed  identification  of  Kittim  with  the  people  of  Ketis  in 
Cilicia  Tracheia  keeps  the  name  in  the  same  region.  The  Hebrew  text  of 
Gen.  X.  4  has  Dodanim,  the  Septuagint  Rodanim:  both  texts  have  Rodanim 
in  I  Chron.  i.  7. 

1*  The  omission  of  the  letter  s  between  vowels  is  a  common  phenomenon  in 
Greek  :  hence  Alasia  became  'A\^ioj'. 

"  No  definite  proof  is  known  that  the  Median  Empire  included  Cilicia, 
but,  as  it  extended  to  the  Halys,  it  is  likely  to  have  embraced  Cilicia, 
though  that  cannot  be  assumed  as  certain,  for  an  extension  of  Median 
power  across  the  Eastern  Taurus  to  the  Halys  without  touching  Cilicia 
is  quite  possible. 

**  The  phrase  ivva<rrfia>v  is  used  of  one  Syennesis ;  and  that  word  was 
appropriate  to  priest-kings  in  western  Cilicia. 

""  Religion  of  Greece  and  Asia  Minor"  in  Hastings'  Dictionary  of  tJu 
Bible,  v.,  p.  128. 

"  We  omit  entirely  some  coins  of  the  sixth  century,  which  have  been  very 
doubtfully  attributed  to  Tarsus. 


440  Notes 


"a  The  attribution  to  Tarsus  is  proposed  by  M.  Six,  and  accepted  by  Mr, 
V.  Head  {Hist.  Num.,  p.  612),  two  of  the  highest  authorities. 

^''bSome  scholars,  desirous  to  find  some  unifying  idea  in  the  group  of 
separate  types  on  this  coin,  understand  that  the  battlemented  walls  are  the 
fortificatioris  of  Tarsus,  and  that  the  type  of  Hon  and  bull,  a  Tarsian  emblem, 
is  placed  above  to  give  the  name  of  the  fortified  city.  But  two  parallel  lines 
of  wall  seem  an  unsuitable  way  of  portraying  a  city.  At  the  "  Syrian  Gates" 
there  were  two  parallel  lines  of  wall ;  other  features  of  the  Gates  are  omitted 
in  this  small  picture. 

^*  See  Lehmann-Haupt,  Klio,  1907,  p.  299,  n.  5. 

^'  As  Herodotus  and  others  show,  the  name  Cilicia  was  formerly  applied 
to  a  much  larger  territory,  reaching  as  far  north  as  the  Halys  and  including 
the  two  most  important  cities  of  southern  Cappadocia,  Tyana  and  Mazaka. 

^  Quoted  by  Eusebius,  Chron,,  i.,  p.  27  (Ed.  Schoene). 

*aSee  Plate  IV.  in  Pauline  and  other  Studies,  and  an  article  on  the 
Peasant-God  in  the  Contemporary  Review,  December,  igo6. 

^^St.  Paul  the  Traveller  and  the  Roman  Citizen,  p.  84. 

^^a  Disandon  in  Syncellus,  Desanaus  in  Eusebius.  The  authorities  are  fully 
given  in  the  important  articles  by  K.  O.  Muller  in  Rhein.  Museum,  iii.,  p.  22  ff. ; 
Meyer  in  Zft.  d.  deutschen  morgenlaend.  Gesellschaft,  31,  p.  736  ff. ;  Wernicke 
in  Robert,  Aus  der  Anomia.  That  Sandon  was  Anatolian,  not  Semitic 
(against  Muller),  may  be  regarded  as  certain :  the  name  was  specially 
characteristic  of  Cilicia. 

2'bln  Aus  der  Anomia,  p.  178  ff. 

^Eraser,  Adonis  Attis  Osiris. 

^b  M.  Imhoof  Blumer  considers  that  both  epithets  belonged  to  Perseus, 
not  to  Apollo  {Journal  of  Hellenic  Studies,  1898,  p.  172  ff.).  Mr.  G.  F.  Hill 
sees  that  Patroos  must  belong  to  Apollo  {Catalogue  Brit.  Museum,  p.  Ixxxix.). 
The  fact  that  where  Perseus  appears  without  Apollo  no  epithets  occur,  but 
where  the  same  scenes  are  represented  with  Apollo  on  the  hand  of  Perseus, 
the  epithets  are  added,  suggests  that  the  titles  are  Apolline.  Greek  religious 
ideas  point  strongly  to  this  connection,  and  are  unfavourable  to  attributing 
the  epithets  to  Perseus. 

^■'The  dates  of  the  coins  are,  of  course,  taken  from  the  numismatic 
authorities,  and  need  no  discussion. 

-*  The  possibility  that  Antiocheia-on-the-Cydnus  was  founded  under 
Seleucus  IV.  and  named  after  his  father,  may  be  set  aside  as  too  remote :  it 
is  an  accepted  rule  that  cities  which  were  named  after  one  of  the  Seleucid 
kings  must  be  presumed  to  bear  the  founder's  name.  The  arguments  for 
this  are  overwhelming.  Clear  evidence  must  be  given  for  any  theory  of  an 
exception  to  the  rule  (p.  253) ;  and  in  this  case  the  evidence  is  in  favour  of 
the  rule,  for  several  other  Cilician  cities  were  refounded  and  began  to  strike 
their  own  coins  under  Antiochus  IV.,  as  will  be  shown  below. 


Notes  44 1 


*'' There  is  some  doubt  as  to  the  status  of  Antiochis.  It  is  possible  that 
she  was  legally  the  second  wife  of  the  king,  and  that  the  disparaging  term 
in  2  Maccabees  is  due  to  Jewish  hatred  of  their  enemy. 

*"  It  would  have  been  much  harder  to  understand  the  facts  if  such  purely 
Cilician  and  non-Greek  cities  as  Adana  and  Anazarba  had  begun  the  in- 
surrection. 

^  The  rich  coinage  of  Mallos,  thoroughly  Greek  in  character  during  the 
sixth  and  early  fifth  centuries,  as  M.  Imhoof  Blumer  was  the  first  to  recognise 
it,  proves  how  much  more  Greek  Mallos  was  than  Tarsus.  The  Greek  ele- 
ment in  those  colonies  had  to  be  counterbalanced  by  a  strong  Oriental 
element,  before  it  was  sufficiently  amenable  to  Seleucid  requirements. 

^Letters  to  the  Seven  Churches,  p.  130. 

^The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire,  p.  154. 

**•  It  is,  however,  possible  that  the  term  demiourgos  spread  from  Tarsus 
to  other  Cilician  cities,  which  may  have  imitated  its  constitution  when  they 
acquired  autonomy. 

'^  See  M.  Clermont  Ganneau  in  Quart.  Statement  Pal.  Expl.  Fund,  1901, 
p.  382. 

'^The  supposition  that  the  Jews  of  some  other  city  followed  Joseph  for 
such  a  distance  as  to  be  able  to  throw  him  into  the  Cydnus  is  too  violent  to 
be  accepted. 

^'a  Some  prefer  to  interpret  this  as  a  designation  of  Dalisanda  in  Cilicia 
Tracheia. 

"The  Latin  translation  in  the  Migne  edition  calls  him  the  bishop  of 
Tiberias;  but  this  is  a  false  rendering  of  the  Greek.  No  Christians  were 
allowed  to  live  in  Tiberias. 

^^ Expositor,  Jan.,  1906,  p.  42. 

^On  the  "Tribes"  into  which  the  population  of  a  Hellenic  city  was 
divided,  see  the  Letters  to  the  Seven  Churches,  pp.  146-150,  or  any  work  on 
Greek  Antiquities. 

^See  his  article  on  the  Jews  of  the  Diaspora,  in  Hastings'  Dictionary  of 
the  Bible,  v.,  p.  105. 

^  St.  Paul  the  Traveller,  pp.  35  ff.,  310-12. 

**  An  examination  of  the  meaning  and  use  of  (rtryyfUT)s  and  a-vyyeytta  in 
Greek  is  much  needed.  The  lexicons,  even  Steph.  Thesaurus,  rarely  give 
any  help  in  such  matters. 

•"See  Josephus,  Ant.  ^Md.,  xii.,  3,  2,  §  126,  and  Letters  to  the  Seven 
Churches,  p.  152. 

••Such  as  grapes  and  corn-ears,  which  marked  the  giver  of  corn  and 
wine. 

"The  history  of  the  Province  Cilicia  in  this  century  is  treated  more  fully 
in  Historical  Commentary  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  p.  105  ff. 

**  Appian,  Syr.,  48. 

^  It  is  only  twice  named  in  his  writings,  Att*,  v.,  20,  3,  Fam.,  ii.,  17,  x ; 


44*  Notes 

but  it  is  implied  as  the  place  where  he  was  residing  during  certain  events ; 
but  no  light  whatsoever  is  thrown  by  this  Roman  governor  on  the  condition 
of  the  capital  of  his  Province.  He  was  wholly  taken  up  with  Roman 
matters. 

^Augustus  had  the  same  family  names  as  his  uncle  the  Dictator,  who 
had  adopted  him.  The  name  Gaius  Julius  Paulus  occurs  once,  Julia  Paula 
twice,  in  early  Christian  inscriptions  of  Lycaonia. 

"Suetonius,  Jul.,  84. 

**  It  is  collected  by  my  friend  and  old  pupil,  Professor  T.  Callander,  in 
the  Journal  of  Hellenic  Studies,  1904,  p.  58  if. 

*''  txovaav  rpus  Pa(n\flas  iir\  t^j  K«pa\rjs.  This  passage,  which  is  so 
perfect  an  example  of  what  Paul  did  mean,  is  actually  quoted  {e.g.,  in 
Heinrici-Meyer's  Kommentar)  as  a  proof  that  i^ovaia  means  the  authority 
to  which  the  woman  is  subject. 

*^  Historical  Commentary  on  Galatians,  p.  466. 

**  The  termination  ilia  was  often  used  to  form  diminutive  or  pet  names 
ApoUonius  occurs  in  the  Bezan  text. 

^^  On  the  Roman  official,  6  Kparurros  Bf6<pi\os,  see  St.  Paul  the  Traveller, 
p.  388. 

"  Possibly  the  strange  name  Tyrronius  may  be  a  Semitic  name  Grecised, 
Cities  and  Bish.  0/  Phr.,  ii.,  pp.  639,  647-50. 

'^At  Akmonia  C.  Tyrronius  Klados  was  chief  of  the  synagogue  in  the 
second  half  of  the  first  century,  Cities  and  Bish.  of  Phr.,  ii.,  p.  650  :  on  Julia 
Severa  ibid.     See  note  51. 

*'I  propose  to  restore  the  text  (unintelligible  in  Bull.  Corresp.  Hell., 
1899,  p.  189),  Avp.  Mco[ycr]^s  Kapirov,  b  irdvrrj  iroWaKts  yei'6/xevos  Kal  rhv  K6<riJioi> 
woWaKis  l<rropi)(ras ,  vvv  Se  KeTfiat  fi-qKert  firjSev  tlSais  '  ravra  [5]^  [m]<^[»']o[»'] 
'•  fv>pix^^'  ovSeh  aOdvaTos  ". 

^Cities  and  Bish.  0/ Phr.,  ii.,  p.  386. 

^  Seleucus,  Cities  and  Bish.  of  Phr.,  ii.,  p.  545  ;  Alexander,  Josephus, 
Bell.  Jud.,  ii.,  18,  7  ;  Cities  and  Bish.,  ii.,  p.  672. 

••  Cities  and  Bish.,  ii.,  p.  672. 

"  imK\i)v  "kcrSoKos :  the  reading  of  the  second  cognomen  Koriaskos  or 
Koreskos  is  not  quite  certain.  Cities  and  Bish.,  i.,  p.  118,  No.  28 ;  ii.,  p.  545  ff. ; 
Judeich,  Alterthiimer  von  Hierapolis,  p.  142.  I  still  believe  against  Judeich 
that  the  inscription  is  Christian,  and  specifically  Jewish-Christian. 

*'^  *"X*P*"*  ^  iiri-KoKi^ovaa  irapk  rols  Tapffevtriv  Sxtt  a.irav<TTus  ffXiiii^uv 
maph.  XP^t^"-  *"P^J  "^^^  SfSo/xfvriy  vrr68«riy  (Strab.,  p.  674). 

"See  Herzog  in  Philologus,  Ivi.,  p.  45,  and  Th.  Reinach  in  Revue  des  Et, 
Juives,  1893,  p.  166  f. 

"The  other  Athenodorus  was  living  in  extreme  old  age  as  late  as  47  B.C., 
and  was  distinguished  by  the  surname  Kordylion.  I  confused  them  in  St. 
Paul  the  Traveller,  p.  354.  Although  I  have  more  than  once  had  to  write 
about  Athenodorus  since  then,  I  did  not  observe  that  the  error  had  infected 


Notes  443 

my  own  work.  The  supposition  that  Athenodorus  was  of  Jewish  origin  must 
occur  to  every  one  on  account  of  the  epithet  Kananites  (variant  in  Matt.  x. 
4,  Mark  iii.  i8,  for  Kavai/am,  see  Herzog,  Philologus,\vi.,  p.  51),  but  Strabo's 
statement  that  the  surname  was  derived  airh  Kciixrjs  riySs  must  be  accepted ; 
for  Strabo  was  a  personal  friend  of  the  philosopher,  and  therefore  his  authority, 
always  great,  possesses  a  specially  high  value  in  this  case.  As  Athenodorus 
was  a  Tarsian  citizen,  the  suggestion  which  I  made  in  Hastings'  Dictionary 
of  the  Bible,  iv.,  p.  687,  that  he  may  have  been  born  in  Kanna  of  Lycaonia 
and  educated  in  the  Tarsian  schools,  would  have  to  be  supplemented  by  the 
supposition  that  the  honour  of  citizenship  had  been  conferred  on  him  by  a 
special  decree  of  the  Tarsian  people.  This  great  philosopher,  favoured  of 
the  Emperor,  was  precisely  the  sort  of  person  in  whose  favour  such  excep- 
tional decrees  were  made ;  but  although  Strabo's  account  is  perhaps  not 
absolutely  inconsistent  with  this,  yet  it  strongly  suggests  that  Athenodorus 
was  born  a  Tarsian. 

'*  See  note  71. 

''Strab.,  pp.  6  and  55  :  in  the  Epitome  Diog.  the  order  of  enumeration  is 
Posidonius,  Athenodorus,  Antipater. 

*'  Cicero,  ad  Fam,,  iii.,  7,  5.  He  assumes  that  Appius  could  find  in  Rome 
a  copy  of  Athenodorus's  treatise,  which  in  itself  implies  fame,  for  books  were 
scarce  in  that  period  and  hard  to  procure. 

^Ad  Att.,  xvi.,  II,  4  ;  14,  4.  Cicero  asks  Atticus,  who  was  in  Rome,  to 
urge  Athenodorus  to  hurry. 

*'Dion,  Ivi.,  43  ;  Zonaras,  p.  544,  B  (ed.  Dindorf,  ii.,  p.  455). 

®®  fffri  Kal  <riyr,s  6.KivSvvof  ytpas. 

'^  Strabo,  p.  779 :  Clemens  Alex,,  Protrepticon,  p.  14  (ed.  Sylburg). 

^  Eusebius,  Chronica,  a.d.  7.  Jerome,  in  his  translation  of  the  Chronicle, 
modifies  the  expression  and  calls  him  a  Stoic  philosopher,  evidently  because 
he  knew  from  other  sources  that  Athenodorus  belonged  to  that  school. 
Strabo,  pp.  6,  55. 

••  See  especially  Lightfoot's  judicious  essay  "  St.  Paul  and  Seneca  "  in  his 
edition  of  Philippians  {St,  Paul  the  Trav.,  p.  353  ff.). 

■">  Ibid. 

'^  Lucian,  Macroh.,  21,  Svo  Kal  oyZoi\KovTa  sttj  /3iou$  iT(\(vrj\<Ttv  iv  rp  warpiii, 
Kal  TJ/uos  6  Tapfffwv  Srj/xos  avr<f  Kar  itos  (KaTTOv  airovffin  aij  Ijpaji.  Ruhl  in 
Rhein.  Mus.,  1907,  p.  424,  throws  doubt  on  the  eighty-two  years  stated  by 
Pseudo-Lucian ;  but  the  authority  of  Strabo  and  Eusebius  proves  that  the 
statement  is  near  the  truth  and  is  not  exaggerated. 

''^  i^ovffla  is  the  word  used  by  Strabo,  which  illustrates  the  meaning  that 
necessarily  belongs  to  it  in  i  Cor.  xi.  6  (discussed  above  in  §  xvii.). 

"  KaTtAutre  r^v  KaOnrrwaav  iro\iTfiaw. 

''♦His  principle  was  expressed  in  the  words  quoted  from  Horace,  Odtt, 
iii.,  2,  25  :  see  §  xx. 

^*a  See  Part  I.,  %  vii. 


444  Notes 


"'In  the  Pauline  and  Other  Studies,  p.  369  ff.,  there  is  an  article  on 
Society  in  the  Eastern  Roman  Provinces  during  the  fourth  century  in  which 
this  is  brought  out. 

''^  4yKvn^ios  vatSda,  Strabo,  p.  673. 

"Frazer,  Adonis  Attis  Osiris,  p.  42. 

"  I  have  been  guilty  of  this  error  myself  in  Hastings'  Dictionary  of  the 
Bible,  iv.,  p.  687,  following  many  predecessors  therein.  I  corrected  the  mis- 
take in  the  Expositor,  October,  1906,  p.  373. 

''^  r]  irpdiiTi)  KoX  f»,iyi(TT-q  koX  KaWtari}  ft.r)rp6iro\\.s  twv  y'  iirapx^ioiv  KiXiKlas 
'iffavplas  AvKaoflas  vpoKade^o/xfyrj,  kuI  /9'  vewKSpos,  Kal  TfTfifiTififfri  ij.6vt) 
Sriixiovpyiais  re  Kal  KiKiKapxlats  enapxinwy  fKevdfpij!  Koivo$ov\laj  Koi  erfpats 
wXe/o-Tttis  Kal  ixeylffTais  Kal  i^aiperois  SoptaTs,  see  Waddington  in  B.C.H.,  1883, 
p.  281  f. 

*•  We  should  expect  that,  after  Anazarbus  became  a  meeting-place  of  the 
Commune,  and  was  able  like  Tarsus  to  place  on  its  coins  the  term  Koinobou- 
lion  (place  of  deliberation  of  the  Koinon),  it  also  would  have  had  a  temple 
"Common  to  Cilicia,"  and  would  have  been  Neokoros;  but  no  coin  mentions 
such  a  temple,  and  the  title  Neokoros,  which  has  been  read  on  one  coin,  is  not 
accepted  with  perfect  confidence.  But  probably  coins  may  yet  be  found  which 
mention  both  honours. 

81  See  Hill  in  the  Austrian  Jahreshefte,  1899,  p.  245  ff.,  where  several  illus- 
trations, taken  from  marbles,  show  the  form  of  the  crown  fitting  round  the 
heads  of  high-priests  and  high-priestesses. 

^^ Church  in  the  Roman  Empire  before  170,  p.  397. 

^"Tarsus  Cilicia  and  the  great  Taurus  Pass"  in  Geographical  yournal, 
1903,  p.  357  ff. ;  above,  §  v. ;  on  Cilicia  Secunda  Mommsen  in  Sachs.  Acad. 
Abhandl.,  ii.,  259. 

**  The  same  usage  occurs  often  :  Asia  Provincia,  ri  A<rla  rh  ^Byos,  in  Dion 
Cassius,  liv.,  30,  shows  how  far  the  term  Nation  was  from  a  racial  term  in 
this  expression ;  Asia  was  the  most  mixed  of  Provinces  {Stud.  Bibl,,  iv.  p.  30). 

**  Mr.  Hill  infers  from  the  shape  of  the  garland  worn  by  Commodus  and  by 
Caracalla  on  some  coins  of  Tarsus,  that  these  Emperors  accepted  the  Demiourgia 
there ;  but  this  seems  a  narrow  basis  for  such  an  opinion ;  had  this  been  so, 
we  should  expect  that  the  fact  would  be  mentioned  on  the  coins. 

^  Also  Antoneinoupolis  and  erroneously  Antoniane. 

^''Rostowzew  in  the  Austrian  Jahreshefte  Arch.  Inst.,  1901,  p.  37  ff. 
(Beiblatt). 

ANTIOCH. 

'  It  is  described  with  illustrations  by  G.  Weber  in  Arch.  Jahrb.t  1904, 
p.  96  f. 

'Hamilton,  Researches  in  Asia  Minor,  i.,  p.  474. 
*  Epigraphic  Jourruy  in  Asia  Minor,  p.  143, 


Notes  445 

*  Sterrett,  Wolfe  Expedition,  p.  402 ;  see  my  Studies  in  the  History  and 
Art  0/  the  Eastern  Provinces  (igo6),  p.  360. 

6  See  Part  II.,  §  xi. 

®Apollonia,  see  Studies  in  the  History  of  the  Eastern  Provinces  (1906), 
p.  360  (against  the  opinion  of  G.  Hirschfeld,  who  regarded  this  city  as  a 
Pergamenian  foundation). 

''Pauline  and  Other  Studies,  pp.  169,  187. 

*  Sterrett,  Epigr.  Journey,  No.  92,  where  read  pcyewvdpiov  and  'hv[ri6xfia.] 
«(^[A«s]  and  [ff]T(^l^^.a  (double  accusative) ;  see  my  Studies  in  the  Art,  etc.,  p.  278. 

"M.  Chamonard's  copy  in  Bull.  Corr.  Hellen.,  1893,  p.  257,  is  more  com- 
plete than  Professor  J.  R,  S.  Sterrett's  Wolfe  Expedition,  No.  550.  In  in- 
scriptions of  the  Roman  time,  when  divorce  was  so  easy  and  frequent,  it  was 
often  added  to  the  epitaph  of  a  married  woman  that  she  had  only  one  husband 
and  was  univira :  this  is  expressed  in  the  last  line. 

'APTiSxtcira  [ytyos]  ■tta.rpTjs  yoviaiv  voKvrel/iuv 

oHvofia  Ae$$ojpd,  aySpl  SoOelcra  K\vr<f 
Tlafj.(pvK<i>  .  .   .  [(pi]\or[f]Ki'a>  .   .   .   iijt  .  .   ,  Eu/x^A  .  • 
■jrapdeviKWu  \fKrp<»v  ayriKafiovcra  x^P^''- 

^^  The  opening  formula  with  ytvos  (a  convincing  restoration)  is  discussed 
in  the  Expositor,  1906,  i.,  p.  506  f. 

"  Marriage  between  a  Jewess  and  a  Hellene  was  certainly  rare,  though 
it  sometimes  happened,  Acts  xvi.  i. 

i^The  formula  denoting  the  status  of  an  Antiochian  who  settled  in 
Apollonia  and  was  by  a  special  law  in  his  favour  granted  citizenship  in  his 
new  home  may  be  seen  in  a  Eumenian  inscription  on  a  grave,  where  a  certain 
Hermes  is  styled  "  Akmonian  and  Eumenian,"  Cities  and  Bish.  of  Phr.,  ii.,  p. 
389,  C.7.G.,  3893. 

^^  Letters  to  the  Seven  Churches,  p.  149. 

^*I  thought  that  the  suggestion  was  made  in  the  Church  in  the  Roman 
Empire  before  a.d.  170;  but  that  is  not  the  case.  The  inscription  is  pub- 
lished in  C.I.L.,  iii.,  6809,  from  my  copy,  and  also  by  Professor  Sterrett. 

^^  Letters  to  the  Seven  Churches,  p.  130. 

^^  Letters  to  the  Seven  Churches,  p.  152. 

"Kaibel,  Epigr.  Grace.  Ital.,  etc..  No.  933,  published  this  inscription  very 
incorrectly  in  respect  of  transcription.  Aipe  is  the  name  in  the  copy,  for 
which  Kaibel  suggests  ayvrt.  He  misunderstands  the  phrase,  "  a  Scythian 
virgin,"  the  meaning  of  which  is  given  above:  on  the  term  "virgin"  see 
Pauline  and  Other  Studies,  p.  108 ;  Histor.  Comm.  on  Galatians,  40,  202 
Church  in  the  Roman  Empire  before  170,  p.  397  f.  Kern  understands  that 
Magnesia  Mae.  is  meant;  but  "  Phrygia  "  is  against  this. 

^*  The  title  'AiroWwviaTwv  Avkiccv  koI  QpanOiv  KoKolivoiv  is  often  mistranslated 
as  if  three  classes  of  people  were  meant.  The  people  of  Synnada  and  other 
cities  called  themselves  "  Synnadeis  Dorieis,"  and  so  on,  without  adding 
•'  Colonists  " ;  this  means  "  The  people  of  Synnada,  who  are  Dorians  ". 


44^  Notes 


^Histor.  Comm.  on  Galatians,  p.  209  f. 

*>  A  single  example  is  sufficient  proof  of  the  general  custom :  see  |  iii. 

^  O.  Kern,  Die  Inschri/ten  von  Magnesia,  No.  80. 

**  They  are  Coloniae  Julia  Augusta  Olbasena,  Julia  Augusta  Prima  Fida 
Comama,  Julia  Augusta  Felix  Cremnensium  (or  Cremna),  Julia  Felix  Gemina 
Lustra  (the  omission  of  Augusta  may  perhaps  be  accidental  in  our 
authorities),  Julia  Augusta  Parlais. 

^  See  the  proof  stated  in  Christ  Born  at  Bethlehem,  p.  238  if. 

^  So  called  from  the  lark,  alauda,  which  was  the  mark  or  crest  distin- 
guishing it. 

^  The  cessation  of  war  and  the  inauguration  of  peace  at  the  first  estab- 
lished the  Empire  in  the  affections  of  the  Provinces  (especially  of  the  East) ; 
but  only  good  administration  could  have  made  this  favour  permanent. 

^The  essential  and  fundamental  fact  in  the  Human  Province  was  not 
the  territory,  but  the  people ;  hence  the  Greek  translation  of  Provincia  was 
rh  tOvos,  the  nation ;  the  Latin  Provincia  Asia  is  rendered  ^  'Kala  rh  iBvos 
by  Dion  Cassius,  LIV.  30.  The  process  is  described  in  Christ  Born  at 
Bethlehem,  p.  120  ff. 

^  One  would  be  disposed  to  conjecture  that  Lystra  was  an  exception.  Its 
usefulness  as  a  colonia  soon  ceased ;  the  Roman  blood  and  tone  were  weaker 
there  than  in  Antioch,  and  perhaps  died  out  naturally  during  the  later  second 
century. 

^  One  or  two  apparent  exceptions,  such  as  the  magistrate  Sekoundos  in 
Sterrett,  Epigr.  Journ.,  No.  96,  belong  to  the  third  century,  when  Roman 
names  were  losing  their  clear  form.  Sekoundos  was  a  Roman :  Secundus 
was  merely  his  cognomen,  but  his  two  first  names  were  omitted  in  Greek 
usage,  just  as  St.  Paul's  two  first  names  are  never  mentioned. 

*  Probably  each  of  the  numerous  inscriptions  in  honour  of  governors  of 
Gaiatia  marks  a  visit  paid  by  the  official  in  question  to  the  city. 

*'On  the  aspect  of  the  "Province"  in  Asia  Minor,  see  the  Letters  to  the 
Seven  Churches,  p.  103,  about  the  Province  Asia  as  the  Beast  that  came  up 
from  the  earth. 

^'  Our  view  is  that  such  was  always  the  claim  of  the  Church :  Letters  to  the 
Seven  Churches  in  many  passages. 

^*The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire,^,  so',  Sterrett,  Wolfe  Expedition, 
No.  352. 

^  See  the  inscription  published  by  Rev.  H.  S.  Cronin  in  Journal  of  Hellenic 
Studies  (1904),  p.  114. 

**Hill,  Catalogue  Coins,  Brit.  Mus.,  Pisidia,  p.  cxii. 

>*a  Sterrett,  Ep.  Journ.,  Nos.  122,  123. 

Mb  The  mixed  Grasco-Asiatic  law  is  described  in  Historical  Commtntary 
an  Galatians,  §§  xxxi.,  xxxiii.  S. 

wc  C.I.L.,  iii.,  6829. 

**0n  this  subject,  compare  Studies  in  the  Art  and  History  of  the  Eattem 


Notes  447 

Provinces  (Hodder  &  Stoughton,  1906),  pp.  4  ff,,  282,  287,  357  ff.  The  centre 
of  gravity  of  the  Roman  world  was  shifting  towards  the  East,  and  Rome  was 
no  longer  the  real  centre. 

^*  X<ipa,  Acts  xiii.  49,  Sterrett,  Epigraph,  yourney.  No.  92,  p.  121  (where 
pfffuvapiov,  i.e.  regionarium,  is  the  true  reading). 

^  The  inscriptions  afford  no  evidence  of  a  college  of  priests  ;  but  the  analogy 
of  Pessinus  and  of  the  Ormelian  hieron  may  be  regarded  as  conclusive. 

^»  Pauline  and  Other  Studies,  p.  157 ;  Letters  to  the  Seven  Churches, 
p.  217.  On  caves  of  Cybele,  see  Anderson  in  Annual  Brit.  Sch.,  Athens,  iv., 
p.  56  f. 

'7  His  account  is  not  quite  clear,  and  probably  he  himself  did  not  exactly 
comprehend  what  took  place,  as  he  had  never  visited  Antioch.  In  all  probability 
the  Divme  property  had  been  taken  by  Amyntas,  and  passed  as  part  of  his 
inheritance  to  Augustus. 

^  ox^os,  plebs  collegii. 

*»  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire,  p.  65  f. ;  Pauline  and  Other  Studies,  p.  365. 

*"  The  association  between  these  two  passages,  which  is  found  in  the  present 
table  of  Jewish  lessons,  is  probably  of  very  early  origin. 

«  St.  Paul  the  Trav.,  p.  99  f. 

** "  That  which  was  a  trial  to  you  in  my  physical  frame  ye  despised  not,  but 
received  me  as  an  angel  of  God  "  (Gal.  iv.  14).  The  effects  of  the  illness  were 
apparent  when  Paul  came  to  Galatia,  as  the  quotation  clearly  shows.  It  is 
quite  extraordinary  that  scholars,  in  spite  of  Paul's  own  words,  should  maintain 
that  the  illness  began  after  he  came  to  Galatia. 

*'  See,  for  example,  Harnack's  Lukas  der  Artzt,  and  the  review  of  that  work 
in  Expositor,  December,  1906,  February,  1907. 

**  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  is  the  meaning  of  the  formula  so  often  em- 
ployed by  Luke.  "  Those  that  feared  God  "  were  in  a  sense  pagans  still,  they 
had  not  professedly  and  overtly  abandoned  paganism. 

**  I  speak  of  a  period  fully  forty  years  ago,  before  racial  hatreds  became  so 
intense  as  they  are  now,  when  such  a  mixed  audience  has  become  almost  an 
impossibility.  I  heard  the  story  twenty-seven  years  ago  from  a  British  subject, 
speaking  Greek  with  perfect  fluency,  who  had  resided  for  business  purposes  in 
Thessaly  and  southern  Macedonia. 

«  The  Authorised  Version  (on  which  see  the  end  of  the  section)  is  due  to  an 
ancient  alteration  in  the  text  intended  to  bring  it  into  conformity  with  a  misuken 
conception  of  the  nature  of  the  situation.  From  verse  45  it  was  concluded  that 
the  Jews  could  not  have  joined  in  the  invitation  to  Paul ;  and  "  the  Gentiles  " 
were  introduced  as  sole  givers  of  the  invitation. 

*''  See  his  History  of  Chr.  in  Apost,  Age,  p.  186  ff. 

«  So  Meyer-Wendt. 

*•  The  meaning  of  this  step  is  more  fully  discussed  in  St.  Paul  tht  Tra- 
veller, passtm. 

^Historical  Commentary  on  Galatians,  pp.  194  f.,  256,  etc 


448  Notes 


ICONIUM. 

^  Especially  by  M.  Babelon,  Melanges  Numismatiques,  i.,  1892,  p.  171, 
^Letters  to  the  Seven  Churches,  chaps,  xi.,  xii. 
^Letters  to  the  Seven  Churches,  pp.  145,  149. 

■*  This  paragraph  gives  in  brief  the  results  of  the  discussion  in  Cities  and 
Bish.  of  Phrygia,  ii.,  pp.  415,  432,  671. 

*  The  scheme  was  contemplated  by  a  French  company  about  1904.  It 
has  recently  been  taken  up  by  the  German  Railway  Company,  and  the  sub- 
ject is  under  investigation  in  1907. 

^  Other  ancient  cuttings  in  a  different  part  of  those  mountains  are  de- 
scribed in  Professor  Sterrett's  Wolfe  Expedition  to  Asia  Minor,  pp.  161  and 
162. 

■^  For  this  identification  of  Nahr-el-Ahsa  see  the  writer's  "  Lycaonia  " 
in  the  Jahreshefte  des  k.  k.  Oest.  Arch.  Instituts,  1904,  p.  118  (Beiblatt). 

*  The  Wolfe  Expedition  to  Asia  Minor,  pp.  123,  133,  180. 

*On  Colossae  and  its  waters  see  The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire,  last 
chapter. 

8a  Angdistis  is  male  on  a  relief  at  Sizma,  female  in  an  Iconian  inscription 
(C.I.G.,  3993).  The  conjecture  Bo[ri]thene,  in  place  of  Boethene  (Histor. 
Comm.  on  Galatians,  p.  220),  is  possible,  but  not  probable.  It  would  imply  that 
here,  as  beside  Thyatirain  Lydia,  there  was  a  village  Boritha  or  Boreita. 

^'>Oest.  Jahreshefte,  1904  (Beiblatt),  p.  67  f. 

"  I  have  to  add  that  the  evidence  bearing  on  the  mines  is  collected  in  the 
Classical  Review,  Oct.,  1905. 

^'^  Greek  Papyri  of  Brit.  Mus.,  i.,  p.  89. 

1' Falsely  called  Ali-Bey-Keui  in  modern  writers  and  maps;  the  error 
is  due  to  ignorance  of  Turkish  among  travellers,  who  fail  to  understand 
the  thick  and  difficult  pronunciation  of  the  peasantry.     Keui  means  village. 

"It  is  the  finest  known  to  me  in  any  part  of  Asia  Minor  with  the  single 
exception  of  Sultan  Khan  (further  N.E.  on  the  same  road),  which  is  by  far 
the  most  splendid  in  Turkey. 

I'' Mr.  Cronin,  loc.  cit.,  inclines  to  a  different  interpretation  of  the  term  (as 
I  also  once  did).  His  chief  argument  is  that  no  other  example  occurs  in 
Asia  Minor  of  irpcoTo/ca»/A^Tr;r  in  this  sense  ;  but  in  1904  I  found  in  this  region 
another  example  of  the  term,  evidently  used  in  this  sense,  at  Serai-Inn,  a 
village  in  the  territory  of  Laodiceia. 

^^  Cities  and  Bish.  of  Phrygia,  i.,  p.  97;  on  the  villages  of  Hierapolis 
see  Anderson  in  Journal  of  Hellenic  Studies,  1897,  p.  411  f. 

"  Ptolemy  in  the  middle  of  the  second  century  likewise  places  both  Vasada 
and  Lystrain  the  Province  Galatia  (as  Antioch  was). 

^*So,  for  example,  Claudius,  Asterius,  and  their  companions  were  arrested 
at  Laranda  in  Lycaonia  in  285  a.d.,  and  carried  before  the  proconsul,  who 
ordinarily  resided  in  Cilicia :  they  were  taken  about  in  his  progress  through 


Notes  449 


Cilicia  and  finally  executed  at  Aigai,  many  miles  east  of  Tarsus  (Acta  Sanc- 
torum, 23rd  Aug.,  p.  567).  The  Province  of  the  Three  Eparchiai,  Cilicia- 
Lycaonia-Isauria,  existed  as  late  as  285. 

'®The  name  has  been  almost  forgotten.  Professor  Sterrett  in  1884  got  it 
as  Dibi-Delik,  I  in  1904  and  1905  as  Kutu-Delik ;  but  Monsieur  Cousin  in 
1898  was  told  that  it  was  Sindjerli-Khan  (as  I  was  by  careless  informants): 
there  is  a  village  Sindjerli  about  two  hours  to  the  south,  and  Sindjerli-Khan 
is  near  the  village. 

Since  this  paragraph  was  written  I  copied  in  Tilki  Khan,  at  the  southern 
end  of  another  pass  over  Boz-Dagh  on  the  road  from  Iconium  to  Psebila,  a 
milestone  of  the  year  199  a.d.  It  belongs  to  the  same  series  as  the  one  mentioned 
in  the  text,  but  does  not  contain  the  name  of  the  provincial  Governor.  The 
omission  may  perhaps  be  due  to  the  carelessness  of  the  engraver ;  but,  while 
this  series  of  milestones  shows  great  ignorance  of  Latin  usage,  a  more  probable 
reason  is  that  Strabo's  term  of  office  expired  while  the  roads  were  in  process  of 
reconstruction,  between  the  time  when  the  milestones  at  Salarama  and  Psebila 
were  cut  in  198  and  the  time  when  the  work  progressed  as  far  as  Tilki-Khan. 

*'See  Gal.  vi.  11 ;  Histor.  Comm.  on  Gal,,  p.  464  f. 

21  The  name  in  this  case  is  spelt  Apponius. 

^The  best  known  is  Aponius  Saturninus,  a  prominent  supporter  of 
Vespasian  in  the  war  of  a.d,  69,  who  afterwards  was  Proconsul  of  Asia. 

^Thus,  for  example,  the  discovery  of  Savatra  in  1901  resulted  from  the 
report  that  many  stones  for  the  Tchelebi  Effendi's  country  house  beside 
Iconium  had  been  brought  from  a  village  twelve  hours  distant. 

**  Studia  Biblica,  iv.,  p.  51. 

^  See  Lebas-Waddington,  1192. 

*  In  Studia  Biblica,  iv.,  p.  52  f.,  failing  to  observe  the  "  poetic  licence,"  I 
inferred  that  this  region  of  the  Galatic  Province  was  incorporated  in  one  of 
the  three  Galatian  tribes;  but  that  inference  seems  less  probable  than  the 
explanation  now  suggested.  I  also  misinterpreted  the  date,  being  afraid, 
like  Waddington,  to  follow  the  rule  that  cities  of  these  regions  dated  from 
the  organisation  of  the  Province  (Asia  or  Galatia,  as  the  case  was)  ;  the 
correct  dating  does  away  with  one  of  the  witnesses  called  to  prove  the 
scarcity  in  the  days  of  Claudius,  and  therefore  requires  the  deletion  of  three 
lines  also  in  St.  Paul  the  Trav.,  p.  49,  Christ  Born  in  Bethlehem,  p.  252;  but 
I  am  glad  that  in  all  three  places  I  spoke  of  the  dating  as  uncertain,  so  that 
the  strength  of  the  argument  in  them  is  unaffected.  I  saw  this  inscription 
for  the  first  time  in  1905,  and  recognised  that  it  must  be  placed  150-250  a.d. 

^  So  regarded  by  Strabo,  Cicero,  Pliny  in  some  passages,  and  the  Romans 
generally.     Pliny's  variation  is  due  to  his  dependence  on  different  authorities. 

^  Tojj  rfffffapfftv  (TTfufMiffiu  t7/[s]  Ko[\a)]i'tay  (C.I.G.,  39956,  where  t^[i]  oIko- 
[Sofxjlas  is  restored  meaninglessly) :  the  term  prostatai,  which  follows,  denotes 
the  heads  of  Tribes,  and  proves  that  the  stemmata  represent  four  tribes  of  the 
four-headed  Colony  (Hist.  Comm.  Gal.,  p.  219) :  stemma  at  Antioch,  note  8. 


450  Notes 


®  It  is  published  in  .C.I.L,  iii.,  No.  13638. 

^Letters  to  the  Seven  Churches,  chaps,  xi.,  xii. 

*^Studia  Biblica,  iv.,  p.  32. 

*  See  note  24. 

9*  On  coins  of  Parlais,  before  Augustus  made  it  a  Roman  colony,  the 
name  of  Diomedes  occurs.  This  is  a  case  like  Iconium,  and  the  coins  must 
be  placed  similarly,  either  about  50-40,  or  with  some  special  privilege  contrary 
to  the  custom  of  the  Province  immediately  after  25  B.C. 

^Studies  in  the  History  of  the  Eastern  Roman  Provinces,  Hodder  & 
Stoughton,  1906,  p.  308.  It  is,  of  course,  not  meant  that  6x^0^  's  used  every- 
where in  the  Acts  as  translation  oi  plebs.  It  is  applied  to  the  mob  of  purely 
Greek  cities,  as  at  Thessalonica,  Beroea  and  Ephesus.  But  the  fact  remains 
that  Hellenes  is  used  at  Iconium  and  not  at  Antioch  and  Lystra. 

'^Marquardt,  Roem.  Staatsverw.,  i.,  p.  364  (ed,  ii.,  1881) ;  Kornemann  in 
Pauly-Wissowa,  Real-Encyclopaedie,  1900,  iv.,  p.  551 ;  Zahn,  Einleitung  in  das 
N.T.,  1897,  §  II,  n.  5,  and  at  length  with  arguments,  Kommentar  zum  N.T. : 
Galater,  1905,  p.  13.  Numismatists,  on  the  contrary,  almost  all  take  the  right 
view,  e.g.,  Head,  Hist.  Num.,  p.  593 ;  Hill,  Catalogue  Br.  Mus.  Lycaonia,  p. 
xxiv. ;  Macdonald,  Hunterian  Collection,  ii.,  p.  524 ;  Imhoof-Blumer,  Klein- 
asiatische  Muenzen,  ii.,  p.  418. 

"See,  e.g.,  Sterrett,  Wolfe  Expedition,  No.  352,  and  C.I.L,t  iii.,  6786, 
where  the  Colonia  Lystra  passes  such  votes. 

"See  C./.G.,  3991. 

'"The  inscription  (which  I  sent  to  Dr.  Wiegand,  of  the  German  Institute 
in  Constantinople,  through  my  friend  the  German  Consul  in  Konia,  Dr, 
Loytved,  for  publication)  contains  many  points  of  interest.  Two  impressions 
were  also  sent  him,  one  made  by  Dr.  Loytved,  one  by  myself.  To  make 
assurance  doubly  sure  I  consulted  also  my  friend  Professor  O.  Hirschfeld,  in 
Berlin,  the  leading  authority  on  Latin  Epigraphy,  who  considers  the  meaning 
of  the  phrase  quoted  to  be  indubitable. 

**  Kornemann  in  Pauly-Wissowa,  Real-Encyclopaedie,  iv.,  p.  566, 

*"  It  is  called  "  a  Roman  City,"  p.  45  note  ;  but  this  phrase  means  only, 
as  the  context  shows,  a  city  of  the  Empire  and  of  the  Province  Galatia 
(in  contrast  to  Dr.  Farrar's  statement  that  it  was  excluded  from  the 
Province). 

*''In  the  Expositor,  Dec,  1905,  Jan.,  Feb.,  1906,  there  is  given  a  first 
account  of  the  early  Christian  inscriptions  of  Lycaonia.  We  observe  also 
that  on  coins  of  the  Colonia  the  spelling  is  sometimes  Iconiesis,  instead  of 
iconiensis.  This  false  spelling  is  due  to  the  Greek  rendering  of  the  Roman 
adjective :  after  the  Colonia  was  founded  the  older  Greek  ethnic  'iKovuis  was 
liable  to  be  replaced  by  'iKoviiiaios  (Just  as  the  Philippians  are  called  by  Paul 
♦tXixir^o'toi,  the  transcription  of  the  Latin  Philippenses :  Histor.  Comment,  oh 
Galatians,  p.  321) ;  and  Greek  speakers  not  very  well  accustomed  to  Latin  made 
the  Latin  adjective  like  the  Greek  rendering. 


Notes  451 


**  See  "  Lycaonia  "  in  the  Austrian  Jahreshefte  (Beiblatt),  1904,  p.  121,  where 
I  conjectured  that  the  fortress  Dakalias  guarded  this  road,  but  did  not  observe 
the  identity  with  Takali  :  also  Histor.  Geography  of  Asia  Minor,  p,  359. 

**  See  Lycaonia,  p.  69. 

^  Pauline  and  Other  Studies,  pp.  133  f.,  158  L 

DERBE. 

1  P.  340  ff. 

*I  paced  a  number  of  the  intervals  successively,  as  follows :  130, 137,  140, 
67,  68,  140,  66,  134,  6g,  67,  73,  60,  65,  68,  62.  The  five  larger  measures  are 
where  intermediate  stones  have  been  destroyed  or  hidden  from  view.  The 
intervals,  therefore,  vary  from  60  paces  to  73  ;  and  the  stones  must  have  been 
placed  roughly  according  to  eyesight,  and  not  by  measurement.  I  paced  the 
short  interval  60  twice,  and  measured  it  with  the  tape-line,  148  feet. 

^Probably  most  of  them  might,  with  care,  be  traced.  The  lost  stones 
occur  mostly  near  the  point  where  I  began  to  pace  the  distances,  when  I  was 
on  the  outlook  only  for  taller  stones. 

*  These  stones  have  been  described  and  published  by  my  friend  the  Rev. 
H.  S.  Cronin  in  the  yournal  of  Hellenic  Studies,  1902.  On  the  topography, 
however,  it  is  necessary  to  consult  my  paper  in  the  Annual  of  the  British 
School  at  Athens,  1902,  on  "  Pisidia  and  the  Lycaonian  Frontier,"  incorpor- 
ating the  results  of  more  recent  discoveries. 

'  See  the  Austrian  Jahreshefte,  1904,  p.  67  (Beiblatt). 

*Konia  and  the  neighbouring  village  Sille  have  preserved  a  continuous 
Greek  population,  and  continuity  in  the  tradition  may  therefore  be  expected, 
and  can  almost  certainly  be  traced  in  the  church  of  St.  Amphilochius  and  the 
monastery  of  St.  Chariton,  etc.     See  Part  IV.,  §  ix. 

'  See  the  chapter  on  "  Ephesus  "  in  the  Letters  to  the  Seven  Churches  ; 
the  articles  on  the  Ephesian  goddess  and  '*  The  Permanence  of  Religion,  etc.," 
in  Pauline  and  Other  Studies,  p.  125  ff. 

8  The  few  Greeks,  who  are  met  with  in  this  neighbourhood,  are  all 
strangers  engaged  in  trade.  The  Christian  population  of  this  part  of  Lycaonia 
was  entirely  exterminated  or  expelled  after  the  Turkish  conquest.  There  is, 
therefore,  no  continuity  in  the  local  tradition  ;  and  no  one  among  the  Greeks 
knows  that  Derbe  was  situated  in  the  neighbourhood. 

"There  is  no  absolute  impossibility  that  it  might  be  of  the  second  century  ; 
but,  personally,  I  should  not  be  inclined  to  date  it  so  early. 

i^The  most  ornate  example  of  this  type  was  republished  in  Pauline  and 
Other  Studies,  p.  2i6.  The  whole  series  is  published  by  Miss  Ramsay  .c 
Studies  in  the  Art  and  History  of  the  Eastern  Provinces,  p.  22  ff. 

"  Compare  the  chapter  on  Ephesus  in  the  Letters  to  the  Seven  Churches, 

^  The  chief  facts  about  this  name  are  gathered  together  in  my  paper  on 
Lycaonia,  in  the  Austrian  Jahreshefte,  1904,  73  f. 


452  Notes 


^'  A  general  account  of  it  is  given  in  my  Preliminary  Report  of  a  jfourney  in 
1905,  Studies  in  the  History  and  Art  of  the  Eastern  Provinces,  p.  241  ff. 

^*  See  the  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire,  chap.  xvi. 

'^For  particulars,  and  for  the  spelling  of  the  name,  see  the  Austrian 
Jahreshefte,  1904,  73  f.  (Beiblatt). 

'•'Professor  Sterrett  uses  here  this  form  of  the  name;  but  I  heard  only 
Losta,  and  so  also  MM.  Radet  and  Ouvre. 

"  Wolfe  Expedition,  p.  29. 

i*He  also  was,  I  think,  the  first  traveller  that  observed  the  ruins  of 
Gudelisin. 

^^  \i/xiiy  was  the  name  for  such  a  station,  whether  it  was  a  coast-town 
and  harbour,  or  an  inland  city  like  Derbe.  Stephanus  Byz.  is  the  only  au- 
thority who  has  recorded  this  fact,  which  he  gathered  from  some  lost  authority, 
who  described  the  city  as  it  was  between  41  and  74. 

^Sterrett, /oc.  cit.,  p.  23,  where  the  author  has  not  observed  that  Pro- 
vincie  is  a  plural,  and  that  the  names  of  two  of  the  Eparchiae  are  lost  at  the 
end  of  the  inscription.     He  mentions  that  the  letters  are  faint. 

LYSTRA, 

^Bulletin  de  Correspondance  Hellen.,  vii.,  p.  318  f. 

*  The  new  Turkish  law  regulating  antiquarian  research  and  excavation  is  so 
strict  as  to  be  almost  prohibitive  without  strong  Government  support. 

^  Lustra  occurs  in  the  only  two  Latin  inscriptions  which  give  the  name, 
C.I.L,,  iii.,  6786,  12215.  The  same  form  is  used  in  the  only  legible  coins  that 
I  have  seen  ;  but  they  are  mostly  worn  and  the  letters  uncertain.  M.  Babelon 
prints  Lystra  in  a  coin  of  Augustus  (Coll.  Waddington,  No.  4790) ;  but  a  mis- 
print may  be  suspected  here. 

*  See  Cronin  in  jfourn.  Hell.  Stud.,  1904,  pp.  113,  115. 


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